The Bitter Past
by Adamantwrites
Summary: People from the Cartwrights' pasts reenter their lives and disrupt their existence; things will never be the same.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and plots are the property of their respective owners. All OC's and plots are the property of the author. No copyright infringement is intended.**

**ONE**

Hoss slung his saddle bags over his shoulder as he and Adam walked out of the cattle buyer's office in Abilene, Kansas. The drovers were standing in the yard, impatiently waiting to be paid while the cattle milled in the stockyards, waiting to be loaded and to be moved by cattle cars to their destinations. Adam paid off each drover and then he and Hoss watched them ride off to one of the saloons or whorehouses in town in order to let loose. They had talked many a night under the stars about what they were going to do once the drive ended, how they were going to have a good time in Abilene.

"Wasn't a bad cattle drive," Hoss said. "Hey Jake, ain't you gonna join 'em?" Jake was in his early fifties and had earlier told Adam that he had racked up enough "good times" when he was younger to last three lifetimes. "Not me, Hoss. It takes a lot of years to finally develop the muscles to hold on to that slippery money."

"Yup, gotta grab onta it and hold on for dear life," Hoss said. "You headin' back to the Ponderosa?"

"Nope," Jake said. "I think that I might just go visit my daughter instead. She and her husband got a homestead not far from here. Might just end out my days sittin' on her front porch in a rockin' chair. She's always asked me in her letters when I was comin' to visit and so I'm makin' that time now."

"Well," Adam said, "sounds like a good way to spend the years. Better than punchin' cows."

"I tell you, Adam," Jake said, "anything's better than punchin' cows." The three men laughed at the truth of it.

"Thanks for all your help," Adam said and he and Hoss shook hands with the older man.

"You tell your Pa bye for me, hear? It was great workin' for the Ponderosa." Adam assured Jake that he would and then watched the old man get on his horse and leave.

"Well," Hoss said, "let's go get a beer but first make sure that cash is nice and safe. I still think you ought to let me carry it."

"You can't keep money on you for five minutes." Adam said, tucking his wallet in the pocket inside the lining of his trail coat."

"Well, make sure you don't just take off that jacket and leave it somewheres."

"That's something only you would do," Adam said.

The two brothers stood and looked around. Although Abilene, Kansas was one railhead to ship cattle to the Chicago stockyards and constantly had cowboys passing through, it was basically now a peaceful town.

"C'mon, Adam," Hoss said. "I'm gettin' thirstier by the minute." The brothers started walking until they came to a relatively quiet saloon that had "On Draught" signs on the outside. They had to check their gun belts at the door. Adam and Hoss sat down and dropped their saddlebags to the floor. They had ridden horses from the remuda on the drive and were taking the stage back home; the rest of the regular drovers were riding back to the Ponderosa, taking the string of horses with them. The others had been paid and could go where they chose with whatever horse they chose from the remuda.

"Where do you think those cattle we just sold are going?" Adam asked as he held up two fingers to the barkeep who nodded and began to draw two mugs.

"To the slaughterhouse," Hoss said, glancing around the saloon. It was a small one and there were no girls. Hoss figured that explained why there were few men in the place and he saw none of their drovers.

"I know that," Adam said. The barkeeper brought the beers over and Adam pulled a coin out of his pocket and handed it over. "What I mean is, you think they're going to feed the south or the north?"

"I don't really care," Hoss said, " as long as we got the money. I'm most worried 'bout who's gonna feed me. I could use a nice plate of steak and eggs. You think they sell food here?" Hoss drained half his glass and gave a sigh of relief.

"Is that all you think about? You know, Hoss, there's a world outside the Ponderosa. As we sit here drinking a cool beer, there are men dying, starving to death in prison camps, being blown apart on battlefields and all you can think about is filling your stomach."

"What you got up your ass?" Hoss asked. "You been nasty as a snake for the past few months and on this drive, well, you was worse than the Judas steer. I swear you led us into trouble more than you led us out."

"And what the hell does that mean?" Adam sat up straighter.

"See? Look at you," Hoss said. "You're just lookin' for a fight."

"Explain what you meant about calling me a Judas steer."

"Well, you kept us down to only ten miles a day when we should'a been coverin' a lot more ground and we got so low on food that Biscuit was rationin' out how much we could eat. I lost more weight than them beeves. We was out two weeks longer than we shoulda been cause of you."

"That was to keep the beeves fat. You know that."

"Yeah, but then you decided we was gonna take the shortcut across Indian country to save time and ran into them Shoshone who stampeded the cattle and stole eight and two of them beeves got trampled-dang, stupid steer. Then, when Trace complained and said it was a foolish thing to do, to go through Shoshone land, you pulled him off his horse and threw him on the ground. And when he punched you, you fired 'im."

"He needed firing." Adam drained his beer mug and held up his hand, two fingers indicating two more beers.

"You was the one who started it. Any man, incudin' me, wouldn't 've stood for it. I would've smashed your face, you done it to me."

"Well, that's the only reason I didn't do it to you." Adam pondered the fresh mug of beer the barkeep put before him.

"Hey," Hoss said to the barkeep, "you got any food here?"

"I've got some hardboiled eggs. You want some-no charge."

"Sure," Hoss said. The bartender quickly brought over a bowl of unshelled eggs and a salt cellar and Hoss proceeded to peel one.

"Aren't you going to wash your hands first?" Adam said with disgust.

"I done eat so much dirt and dust on the trail that a little more ain't gonna hurt me."

The two brothers sat in silence for a good ten minutes, Adam staring into his beer mug and Hoss peeling, salting and eating eggs.

"You know what I'd like?" Hoss said.

"Let me guess, a steak dinner and fried potatoes with peach pie and whipped cream topping it."

"Yeah, well, that too." Hoss said. "But I'd like a bath and then I'd like a woman-after the steak and taters, of course. Been a long time since I've had a woman. Hell, she don't even have to be pretty."

Adam laughed softly, twirling the residual foam in his glass.

"How 'bout it, Adam. Abilene's a little wild but basically a clean town now with that new sheriff here like the cattle buyer said, and I think they got a few pleasure houses."

"More than a few, I'd say." The piano music from the dance halls were starting up and Adam could hear the rollicking tunes drifting over to where they were. "Maybe I will," Adam said. "Let's go get a room, a bath, dinner and then see what happens." He stood up.

Hoss stood up as well, stretching. "I been riding a horse so long that I'm gonna make the woman ride me. A big ol' gal. That's what I got an appetite for."

"Big, like all you other appetites," Adam said. He leaned down and picked up his saddlebags throwing them across his shoulder. "Let's go get a hotel room. That Landau House is where Pa and I stayed last time we were here. No bugs in the sheets and clean towels." The two brothers tipped their hats to the barkeep, picked up their gun belts as they left and walked down the raised wooden sidewalk, their heels clicking on the boards.

Adam looked around. It was only about two hours until dark and Adam knew from experience that there would be two or three more ranches dumping cattle into the railhead of Abilene and drovers looking for a good time and to let off all the pent-up tension of the long trek, herding cattle and eating chuck wagon food. They had slept on the hard ground and the wet ground and on stones and used their saddles as pillows for their weary heads.

Many a morning, Adam had woken up with a stiff neck; he feared that at 33 years, he was getting far too old for this life. His back had ached straight for the past few weeks and the idea of climbing on a whore appealed to him on a pure carnal level but at the moment, it sure seemed like far too much trouble for a few seconds of pleasure; he could satisfy himself and use less energy. And he wouldn't have to talk to anyone either.

It was becoming an effort to carry on a conversation with anyone anymore and he preferred being solitary, so after dinner and a bath, Hoss went off alone into the night and Adam stayed in the hotel room. He lay on one of the two beds in the room, his hands cradling the back of his head and looked at the ceiling, studying the small circle of light from the lit lamp by the bed.


	2. TWO

**TWO**

Hoss had been right; Adam had been bothered for months by a sense of passivity, of wasting his life. He wanted to do something more than just own land and cattle and taking care of them as if they were children. He yearned to have more experiences, to see other cultures or to change the world in some way. Adam had been making noise about joining the Union Army; he didn't like the idea of remaining unbiased and seemingly condoning the custom of slavery. But he also knew that the war was about more than slavery; there were economic factors and states' rights that instigated the war due to the secession of the states but still, Adam felt that he shouldn't, that he couldn't just ignore the rest of the world. But Adam knew that if he felt strongly enough about it, he would have joined the army by now and that made him question himself and the type of man he was.

And Adam yearned to travel. He had considered signing on as a merchant seaman or even joining some country's navy just to have the experience that his father and grandfather Stoddard had known. He could see himself at the stern of a ship, watching the black waters as the ship was moved along and he could actually close his eyes and feel the subtle motion of a sea vessel on the water.

Adam sighed and shifted his arms, making himself more comfortable on the feather mattress. But Adam always had to be honest with himself; all this had started almost a year ago when he had begun to feel that he should marry, should have a life of his own beyond the Ponderosa. He yearned for a family of his own and if not all that, at least for a wife, someone to share his bed and his heart. Adam quickly became bored with the women he met and he couldn't understand why they held no long-term interest for him. After the initial excitement of sexual interest, he found them to be bland and uninteresting; they all wanted to be married and there was no faulting them for that-every woman wanted security and children, it seemed, but the choice of a husband seemed to be of little matter to them. Therefore, the women Adam sparked and took to church and dances all seemed to try to finagle a marriage proposal from him, plying him with food and the promise of a placid wife who would give herself willingly to him since that was her duty.

But Adam felt no burning passion for any of these women. There were attractive women, some bordering on beautiful. Some were intelligent, others not so much so. But to Adam, none of them lit any burning desire in his heart, that feeling he had known as a young man in Boston. That was the feeling he wanted so desperately to rekindle, that was what drove him to want to move to search for something that he wouldn't quite acknowledge was in him-a need to be loved. Adam found that a pathetic need and couldn't admit to himself that he harbored it. He would have looked with disdain at Hoss or Joe if they had whined about not being loved. And yet, he felt the pain deeply. He wanted a woman's love, to crawl into the marriage bed at night and take his wife and have her return his desire.

"You're an ass," he told himself as he sat up on the bed against the headboard, crossing his arms in front of him, staring at the far wall. "A goddamn ass. Be glad for what you have and don't go looking for trouble." He closed his eyes and the thought of Hoss with a wide-hipped whore came to him and he felt the familiar desire grow within him. So Adam sat up, pulled on his boots, shrugged on his trail jacket, stuck on his hat and buckled on his gun belt although Adam was sure that he would have to check his gun at the door of the brothel just as they had earlier in the saloon. In Abilene, the tough-talking Marshal Smith, would abide no gun play and made no bones about violators being shot. The sign in the saloon had stated that entry to the establishment would be denied to anyone who didn't check in their guns per Marshal Tom "Bear River" Smith.

Adam walked out of the hotel room and locking it behind him, headed down to the lobby and then out into the streets of Abilene to look for a well-stocked whorehouse to take the edge off before he and Hoss caught the stage out tomorrow. He'd think about love another day; tonight he wouldn't look for that-just comfort.

When Adam returned to the room a little after midnight, Hoss wasn't yet back. Adam tried to fall asleep amid the far-off hoots from drunken drovers and the loud, cacophonous music emanating from every saloon, dance hall and brothel in the cow town. Eventually, he fell asleep until Hoss' heavy snoring woke him. Adam reached for his pocket watch on the nightstand and focusing his eyes in the dim light from the partial moon and stars, he saw that it was three in the morning.

"Damn," Adam whispered, rolling onto his back and throwing his arm over his eyes. He knew that Hoss would continue with his drunken snoring, the unusually deep, and loud sound he made when he had too much to drink. But as long as Hoss didn't roll out of bed to the floor during the night, a possibility since he was so drunk that he had fallen asleep in his clothes, his hat and gun belt, there would be no harm done except that Adam would have a fretful remainder of the night. At least, Adam thought, Hoss hadn't fallen asleep in his boots as well.

Adam woke Hoss by shaking his meaty shoulder. Hoss sputtered, and even swung out one arm that Adam deftly avoided. Hoss asked what time it was. Adam just said that it was time for Hoss to haul himself out of bed. The sun slanting into the window had woken Adam early and given him time to shave and clean his teeth before he went to wake Hoss who rose to sit on the side of the bed, not making any effort to strand up; he just complained about his head and the bright sun.

"Get your drunken ass out of bed," Adam said, pulling on his boots. "We just have time to eat breakfast before the stage leaves. Now let's go." Adam bent down and picking up Hoss' boots, threw them at him. "If you don't get along, you can catch the next stage. I've had it with Abilene."

Hoss yawned and stretched. "Dang, I drank too much. My head done feel like someone put it on an anvil and pounded it with a sledgehammer."

Adam chuckled. "Maybe they slipped you something in your drink. I sure am glad that you weren't carrying much money. Have you checked your pockets?"

"No," Hoss shook his head and then grabbed it with both hands and groaned. Adam laughed at his brother's misery. "I just bought too many bottles of champagne." Hoss stood up, a little unsteady on his feet and managed to stagger over to the chamber pot.

Adam shook his head and he heard the sound of urine hit the china pot and smelled the deep, pungent odor of piss that was mainly the cheap champagne that Hoss had consumed. Adam was sure that Hoss had been scammed. After all, he was, to all purposes, just another wild drover who had been on the trail for a few months and found women much more desirable than the heifers they had become to look at with new interest the last few weeks-the cause of much lewd teasing among the drovers.

"Hey, Boyd," Hoss had called out to another hand as they were just a few miles out from Abilene. "What you gonna do when you lose your girlfriend here?" Hoss indicated a pretty spotted heifer.

"Yeah," another hand called out. "I'm s'prised you ain't asked her none to marry you, you been so moonfaced over her. But I can see why. That heifer sure is prettier that that girl you been seeing out of Carson City-better breath too!"

The men had all laughed and Boyd had flushed. "Yeah, well none of you got no one waitin' back home for you."

"I got a sheep at my ma's. I tie a bow in her fleece afore I do her," another drover piped up and the men laughed heartily again. They needed to laugh; it relieved the tension and misery of the cattle drive that had met with storms, Indians, rationed grub and a longer trip than anticipated so they joked and teased each other, mainly about sexual matters.

Hoss splashed water on his face and spit and rinsed his mouth. "Adam, you got any of that tooth powder? My mouth tastes awful." Hoss reached back and Adam tossed the tin of tooth powder to him. Hoss wet his finger and sprinkled some powder on it.

"I'm not surprised," Adam said, buckling on his gun belt. "I can only guess where your mouth's been but I don't think I want to know-might put me off my breakfast."

"You are funny, Adam. Just 'cause you missed a nice night in Abilene. And they had some pretty women," Hoss said. "And some big gals too and I got me one that was so big that, well, I had to hold onto the headboard-afraid I would fall in."

Adam laughed. "No, I went out last night for a bit. Found a nice, quiet, clean house and a quiet girl who didn't run her mouth the whole time asking questions about what you do and where you're from as if any of that matters."

"You still got our money, ain't ya?" Hoss looked up suspiciously. "You ain't been rolled by some sweet-talking soiled dove, have you?"

"Course I do." Adam patted his trail jacket and felt the length of his leather wallet. "I never even took off my jacket."

Hoss grinned. "Did you take off your hat or boots?" Hoss waited.

"Yeah. The brim got in the way when I lay down and my spurs would've sliced the sheets and mattress. But she worked around the rest of it."

The brothers both laughed, a relaxed, deep laugh and then Adam slapped Hoss on the back. "I'll get us a table and order breakfast. Hurry up and don't forget to bring your saddlebags with you. We're not coming back to the room."


	3. Chapter 3

THREE

Adam tried his best to nap but there were two children, young boys, on the coach as well and so Adam pulled his hat down over his eyes and tried to ignore the two wrestling boys. Over the past two days, their mother repeatedly told them, begged them to be good but they ignored her. Even when the mother threatened to tell their father about their behavior once they arrived home, the boys looked at her for a brief moment and then continued shoving each other for more space on the seat.

At first, Hoss tried to make friends with them; then maybe they wouldn't fight if they were kept involved in a conversation. When the mother smiled and asked where he was from, Hoss said that he and his brother, indicating Adam, were from a ranch called the Ponderosa in Nevada Territory.

"You mean you're a cowboy?" the oldest boy asked skeptically.

"Yup, that's right. I herd cows and round 'em up and brand 'em and all that stuff." Hoss grinned widely.

"You can't be," the boy said.

Hoss looked puzzled and Adam tipped up his hat to watch.

"Why not?" Hoss asked.

""Cause you're too fat. I bet you'd founder your horse. You'd break its back."

Adam quietly laughed and Hoss' brows drew together. "Well, you know how I got so fat?" Hoss asked, leaning in to the boys.

"How."

"By swallowing smart-alecky kids alive. You want me to make a snack of you?" The younger boy crawled onto his mother's lap, watching Hoss, and the older boy shrunk back into the seat. The mother glared at Hoss who just shrugged. But that only lasted about an hour and then the two boys started kicking each other and pushing each other on the seat again and complaining to their mother and asking how much longer they had until they arrived home. The mother tempted them with gumdrops to settle down and the boys would-until the gumdrop was eaten and then they would start again.

Finally, the coach pulled into a small town called Riverside and Adam and Hoss crawled out to stretch their legs.

"Hoss, I don't think I can take that stage anymore today. How about we spend the night here and take the next stage out tomorrow. Looks like there are going to be two more passengers, those two old women so looks like either you or I are going to end up riding topside."

"How 'bout we tie those kids on topside."

"It'd be fine with me but their mother might object."

"I don't know, Adam. She might think it's the best dang idea yet." Adam laughed.

So Adam and Hoss spent the night in a small hotel in Riverside, two to one bed. In the morning, Adam told Hoss that he should never marry; he'd roll over on top of his bride for sure and suffocate her-which might be preferable to having him lie on top of her for other reasons.

After a large breakfast, Hoss and Adam went to the station to change their tickets and climbed into the stage. It was a three-seat coach; the middle seat had a back of only thick straps of leather and the knees of the middle passengers had to be dovetailed with the knees of the passengers' facing them. It tended to promote an embarrassing intimacy. But the worst was that the wide leather straps offered little back support. So Adam and Hoss both took the seats riding backwards since in the furthest seat was a man whom they could smell as soon as he climbed in. But beside him a toothless, old man in a worn-out jacket and long greasy, gray hair that hung like snakes down his back sat down beside him. Anyone else who entered would have to take the middle seat if they wanted a halfway pleasant ride.

So they sat in the station, the horses stomping their feet and throwing their heads, eager to go. Adam could feel the slight shifts in the coach as the horses moved in their traces and Adam empathized with the animals; he himself had the urge to travel on.

"Hey, Whip, how long before we leave," Adam called out to the driver who was chatting with the station master. There were eight more days before Adam and Hoss would arrive at Virginia City and Adam had sent a wire to his father, Ben Cartwright, just that morning telling him on what stage to expect them.

"Got two more comin'. I think they're comin' now," the stage driver said. He said goodbye to the station master and climbed up on the seat.

Adam sat back and closed his eyes, tipping down his hat. Since the two new passengers would be sitting so close to him, he chose not to make eye contact until necessary; he didn't feel like being engaged in a conversation. The door to the stage opened and he heard a man's voice say that he was fine; he may be blind but he could certainly manage to get into a stage. And then Adam felt Hoss tap his arm. Adam pushed back his hat.

"Adam, there's a blind man and a woman with 'im and they's gettin' on. We better take the middle seats."

"You take the middle seat; I'm not moving." Adam pushed himself further back into the seat and then he heard the man say in an annoyed tone that he could get into a stage by himself and didn't need "her" help. Adam sighed and moved to the middle seat, Hoss having already shifted. He couldn't allow a woman to sit in the uncomfortable middle seats but his back did ache.

"No lady should have to smell them two polecats behind us anyway," Hoss whispered to Adam.

"What makes you think you smell that much better?" Adam felt the three sets of leather straps across his weary back and felt a dark mood come over him. What the hell was he doing here? Why wasn't he off doing what he wanted instead of being stuck in this crowded, rank stage heading home to the boring life that was basically no more than that of a ranch hand. Adam decided that it was time for a change and he was going to make one. But then, as he looked at the man holding on both sides of the stage door as he climbed in, Adam was taken aback. He had seen blind men before and all of them wore dark glasses but this man wore none. Instead the burn scars on his eyes and his cheeks were obvious; the skin was drawn and pulled and his irises had a milky look. One eye was half closed with scar tissue. This blind man would have scared small children.

"Your left side," Adam said. "The seat on your left." The man had no bearings so Adam stepped in.

The man nodded, putting out his hand and felt the seat. He slid into it, thanking Adam. Then he reached back toward the door and a cane was handed to him. Adam glanced at the woman and suddenly, he felt as if he had been punched in the stomach and all the air in his body was expelled—he couldn't breathe. It was the same feeling he had known when he was in a playground fight in school and one of the older boys had slammed his fist into Adam's solar plexus and all his breath was forced out of his lungs. It was a desperate feeling, a panic that grabbed the brain and wouldn't let it go beyond the desperate attempts to pull in oxygen.

And that was how Adam felt upon seeing the woman's face. It was Piper. It was his wife. And he hadn't seen her or heard from her in over twelve years. She stared back at him, her skin blanching, her eyes huge, her mouth opening in surprise. Then she sat down heavily as if her legs had given out. And she didn't know where to look as her knees were next to Adam's. They sat basically across from each other and the space separating them was practically nothing. So the woman pulled herself in as small as she could make herself and turned her attentions to the blind man, avoiding meeting Adam's eyes. Adam pulled his hat down low over his brow and glanced out the coach window, his breathing shaky and the sweat breaking out on his forehead. Finally he managed to control himself physically but his mind raced; seeing her, seeing Piper had brought back all his feelings of love, grief and betrayal that he had experienced so long ago.

Hoss and the blind man finally managed to get their knees in such a position that they were both comfortable and then the stagecoach started with a sudden jerk and everyone went forward-or backwards-slightly and then fell back into their places.

"Well," the blind man said, "since we'll be riding so closely, let me introduce myself. Nash Jeffers." He put out his hand and Hoss shook it.

Adam picked up the man's rich southern accent. Adam put it as Virginian. But that made sense, he thought, since Piper was from Virginia and had been schooled there and the two were now together.

"Hoss Cartwright," Hoss said.

"Well, you are a big one," Nash said, putting his other hand over Hoss' and patting it. "Good to meet you."

"Good to meet you too. This here's my brother, Adam."

Adam pushed back his hat and sat up. "Nice to meet you," Adam said and put out his hand. The blind man, his head raised at an angle to catch Adam's position by his voice, moved his arm toward Adam. Adam leaned forward, took the man's arm with his left hand and then shook his hand.

"This is my wife," the man said, "Mrs. Jeffers." Even though Mr. Jeffers couldn't see her, he motioned toward her with his hand.

Hoss and Adam both tipped their hats and she glanced at them and then turned to look back out the small window of the stage. They were clear of Riverside and out into the wilderness as it stretched before them.

Adam kept surreptitiously glancing at Piper. It was obvious that she didn't want Adam to acknowledge their past so Adam decided that he would wait-there had to be a time when he could speak to her alone. So he would wait but none too patiently. He longed to talk to her, to hear his name spoken by her again-the soft way she used to say it and how she whispered it when he would hold her and kiss her. Adam took in a deep breath and exhaled with a shuddering sound. She glanced quickly his way and pulled her legs further away from him.

Piper Naismith had been her name when Adam first met her, when he fell in love with her and when they married. Only then it had changed to Cartwright and now it was Jeffers. And Adam wondered if more about her had changed as well.

He could see that her face had changed slightly. At 16 when they had first met, Piper's face still had the rounded cheeks of youth and her mouth was always relaxed, her lips, pink and full. And now her face was more angled. Piper had lost the plumpness of her cheeks and her cheekbones had developed a hollow beneath them. She had lost weight. Adam remembered how lush she had been, how her breasts had been full and round and now, she was so slender that it surprised him. And sad; she looked sad and that upset Adam the most.


	4. Chapter 4

**FOUR**

Itwas the end of the term at Harvard and Adam's as well as all the other students' degrees for engineering and architecture would be decided by this final project and the professor was talking to each student individually about their degree status. They had each signed up for an appointment and after Adam had signed up, he had received a note from Professor Naismith moving his time to the last appointment of the day; Adam's heart sank. To him it had only one meaning-he was not yet going to receive his degree, if he was going to receive it at all, and Professor Naismith, who had never shown any special bias toward Adam, was going to be kind to him and not make him face any other students after the crushing news. The appointments fell one on the heel of another, and Adam would be protected from walking out of Naismith's office and having to answer the question, "Well? Are you receiving your diploma?" And for that, Adam was grateful.

Finally it was Adam's time to enter the somber office of Professor Naismith. The professor was a formidable man, tall, almost quite as tall as Adam, and serious and he had a pleasing southern accent. He had told his class that he was originally from Virginia and was honored to be teaching at Harvard. He impressed upon his students that they were fortunate to be matriculating at Harvard and therefore, should take their studies seriously-very seriously as degrees were not easily granted, especially in engineering and architecture as people's lives depended on the integrity of structures. They would be responsible for people's lives in the buildings they designed or the bridges they constructed.

Adam had a great deal of respect for the man and if anyone was to tell him that he was to be denied a degree, he was glad that it was he who would tell him; Professor Naismith wouldn't be maudlin and sympathetic, talking about wasted time, effort and money. Naismith would be honest in his estimation of Adam's talent-or lack of. And so Adam walked into the office braced for the worst. He had already written in his head what he would say in the wire to his father-what he would tell him and his family about his grand failure. And as he had waited, his mind created many and varied scenarios of telling the people of Virginia City that he had flunked out and that his father had wasted a small fortune on his eldest son.

The professor's office was warm and darker that Adam liked; he himself, preferred the sun. On the many overcast Boston days, Adam had longed for the sunny days of Nevada even though out west, sometimes the sun was so bright that the only way to tolerate it was to squint and pull down the brim of the hat so low that one had to tilt back the head to see what was ahead.

"Sit down, Adam. Please." The professor indicated the two leather chairs on the opposite side of the desk behind which he stood. Adam took his seat. The professor sat down, folding his hands on the blotter of his exceptionally neat desk. Adam hadn't worn a hat; the spring day was warm and it didn't look like rain was in the forecast. But he had worn his suit and sat nervously trying not to fiddle with the starched collar and the tie. He could feel the sweat breaking out on him, he was so nervous, and his mouth was dry. He felt his lips stick to his teeth.

"I would imagine," Professor Naismith started, his hands still clasped on his desk, "that you have wondered why I asked you to come in last, why I kept you waiting. And were I you, I would imagine the worst case scenario but if that is what you've been thinking, you have underestimated yourself." The Professor moved his hands and picked up Adam's portfolio that had been lying on the side of the desk.

In the portfolio was Adam's final project that was given at the beginning of the spring term and due at the end. That project would determine if he received his degree in architecture or not. There were only nine architecture students who were in line for the degree and although Adam had always been either the first or second student in the class, he knew that ranking could change at any time. For the project, each student had been given a different type of structure to design, to make the blueprints and to write up the justification. They had also had to build a miniature structure of the assignment and the surrounding grounds. It had to be turned in two weeks before the final paperwork and they were to design as if money was no object.

They had assignments before where they had a budget within which to stay and the students had to write various contractors in different cities for estimates, explaining that they were students and were studying architecture and would appreciate to know how much the contractor would charge for certain services. It is only because the businesses knew that they would have their names written and mentioned in the Harvard students' projects that they took the time to comply; working architecture graduates may use them later or recommend them to others.

Adam had been given a hospital to build. When he had received it, his heart sank. It seemed as if he had been given the most difficult and least creative project of all the students. The other students, once they were all having lunch together in the Hub after the first class, sympathized deeply with Adam. He was well-liked by the other students but some of them were envious of Adam's good looks and his brilliance. Most of them came from wealthier families but they all knew that Adam had been raised on a ranch and some of them referred to him as " the Cowboy." Some of them only referred to Adam as "Clodhopper" and "Shit-kicker" behind his back and with snobbish disdain, but others used it in a friendly way to his face.

"So, Cowboy, looks like Naismith has it in for you. What'd you do to him?"

"I don't know," Adam said, sipping his coffee. "Anyone want to trade projects?" he asked in a light manner; he knew it couldn't be done.

"I'll take your project if you'll throw in that little blonde you were with last weekend," one of the students said.

"Deal," Adam said, grinning and they all laughed. "But you could have her without any trade. I think she likes variety. I think she can fit anyone and she does have a bag of tricks."

"Wonder what school she graduated from?" one of the young men said.

"Who cares?" Adam said. "But I bet she was at the top of her class."

"Well, as long at she's on the bottom of me, that's fine," another student said and the men laughed again.

But Adam was determined to do the best that he could with his assignment. He was envious of the cathedrals, universities, grand manors, hotels and such that other students received but Adam was pragmatic and knew that he had to complete his hospital. So he started thinking about how a patient would view a hospital and he decided that was what was most important.

So Adam visited hospital wards in the surrounding areas. He studied where the nurses stayed, how they managed to know when a patient needed them. He looked at the surroundings and found the hospitals in the middle of cities where industry occurred, disgusting. Coal dust managed to settle everywhere and Adam couldn't imagine how an ill person could become well in such an atmosphere. And Adam thought of Nevada and why his soul longed to be there again. It was the crisp, clean air and the warmth of the sun. There, a man could see the blue sky and hear birds and not the constant droning of street traffic. So Adam was determined to design a clean, friendly environment-people in the hospital were afraid enough-and gardens in which the patients could sit. He divided the hospital, not into male and female wards, but by the disease or disorder that needed to be treated.

And Adam took special care to design a section just for children and another for mothers-to-be. He remembered being ill as a child, how frightened he was and that fear stayed in the back of his mind along with the death of his mother. So Adam began to work feverishly and although he was not a narcissistic man, he couldn't help but feel pride in what he had accomplished.

Professor Naismith's opinion coincided with Adam's. "I am very impressed with your final project, Adam. Not only have you managed to create efficient space, the space is wholesome and would assist both the staff and the patients in keeping a cheerful outlook. I judged your work, Adam, on the basis of myself as a patient, how I would feel being there and I must say, although no hospital is inviting, up to now, most people saw them as a place to die but I believe that a person could feel hopeful being in such a hospital as this. I am going to recommend that you be granted your degree."

Professor Naismith stood and put out his hand. Adam stood up, a smile slowly crossing his face. "Thank you, Professor. Thank you very much. I was certain that I was going to be denied."

"No, my boy. I have to tell you that I have been very impressed with your work in all the classes I've taught in which you were a student. The other professors and I agree that you are one of the finest men we've taught and will make a great architect."

The professor sat back down and indicated for Adam to do so as well. "I asked you to be last because I wanted to tell you that I have recommended you for an internship with Athens, Priestly and Coleman. They have asked for two graduates to train as interns and I have recommended you and Bracewell." The professor reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a business card. "You have an appointment with them next Wednesday at that time. If you can't make it-but I recommend that you do-speak to them and let them know."

Adam took the card, running the tips of one hand's fingers over the engraved words. They seemed magical. "Thank you, sir. I'll be there." Adam stood up and the professor did as well and they shook hands again, both men broadly grinning.

"Let me walk you to the door," the Professor said. "Oh, and Adam, I have a small favor to ask."

The two men stood at the opened door.

"Whatever I can do, I shall. What is it?"

"My daughter is coming to visit from Virginia and I was wondering if you would escort her to the end of the term dance. She isn't yet 17 and I believe that I can trust you with her. She's been raised by her aunt in Richmond and has been in a private girls' school-very sheltered."

Adam's heart sank. He had plans to take one of the town girls who would repay him with her body for such an honor. And now he would have to take the professor's daughter to the dance. And she was only sixteen. But he knew better than to decline.


	5. Chapter 5

FIVE

Adam had been to dinner at Professor Naismith's house a few times before along with other students. It was a small, comfortable house just on the outskirts of the campus. Ivy climbed the brick walls and a neat boxwood hedge separated it from the narrow street. When Adam knocked at the paneled front door, the housekeeper answered and she welcomed him, recognizing him from the times she had served him at dinner.

"Mr. Cartwright, yes?" she asked, stepping back so that he could enter the foyer where a large potted palm surprisingly flourished.

"Yes, ma'am. I'm he…" but Adam hadn't a chance to finish. He pulled off his bowler. He hadn't worn gloves and now wondered if it was a faux pas. There were so many social niceties that he, barely twenty and having been raised on a ranch, lacked, and it sometimes made him feel socially inferior. But one time, after apologizing for what might have been considered a breach of etiquette, a girl had told him that she could and would forgive him anything as long as he kissed her again-and more often.

"Oh, yes, I know," the housekeeper, a Mrs. Edwards said, "You've come to squire Miss Piper to the end-of-term dance. And may I say that you look very handsome. Now, Miss Piper and I, oh what a fuss we've had all afternoon with her hair and her dress. She has been so excited all day about the prospect of going to the dance that she has been running around, not happy with anything about herself as young girls are wont to do. You must tell her that she looks nice, Mr. Cartwright, even if you think it's a white lie. A girl always likes to hear that she looks nice."

Adam smiled. Things did not sound promising as far as Miss Piper was concerned. He groaned inward at the prospect of dancing with a giggly young girl at her first big dance.

"Now, you sit down right here, Mr. Cartwright, and I'll get Miss Piper-Miss Naismith." The housekeeper smiled at Adam and hurried up the stairs.

Adam heard footsteps behind him and turned to look and it was the Professor. Adam stood up and faced him.

"Right on time," the Professor said. "And I expect my daughter home by ten o'clock. Any later, young man, and I'll come looking for you with a dueling pistol. I have a matched set. I have yet to use them but this could be the first time." The professor smiled and Adam relaxed a bit. But he knew that the Professor meant it when he said that he wanted his daughter home by ten.

Adam saw the man avert his gaze and Adam turned and Miss Piper Naismith came down the stairs followed by the beaming housekeeper. Adam smiled. She was pretty, extremely pretty and would be a true beauty when she became a woman. She wore a pale yellow dress and had yellow silk flowers decorating her modest up-do. But little, brown tendrils had escaped, refusing to be confined, and lay about the nape of her neck. It was a little touch of wildness in an otherwise tamed adornment.

The neck was low but not so low as an older woman might wear and she had mid-length gloves as any proper girl would wear. She stood before Adam and her father introduced them. Piper was glowed with joy.

"Now, Piper," the professor said, you behave yourself, young lady. Don't embarrass Adam here by dancing on the refreshment table and stepping in the sandwiches! And I expect you home by ten o'clock."

"Father, please! Stop teasing me and let me stay until the end of the dance. Please."

"Now, my dear, that will be long past your bedtime-you're still my little girl."

"Oh, father. Please let me stay out until the dance ends." Piper looked pleadingly at her father and he reached out and held her cheek.

"All right, my dear. I trust that the spell won't be broken if the clock chimes midnight." Naismith turned to Adam. "But, Adam, bring her home right after that. Understand?"

"Absolutely, sir."

Adam smiled at the obvious affection between father and daughter, at his gentle way with her. But then Adam could see why; Piper was lovely. Her hair was a rich brown and her eyes were hazel but with a fringe of dark lashes. Her face had the curves of youth, a dewy freshness and her arms were round and she had an inherent grace of movement. Her mouth was small yet the lips were full and Adam, being a young man, wondered what it would be like to kiss her. But being an intelligent young man as well, knew that he should never take the chance.

So after much ado, Adam walked Piper to the dance, her arm lightly through his. Adam did most of the talking while Piper asked him questions about his family and his home but soon they arrived at the hall on campus and he escorted her inside, taking her wrap for her and turning in his hat as well. But once they were well in the room and Piper was taken out on the floor by another student who well knew that she was Professor Naismith's daughter, Adam was gently teased by some of the others as "babysitting." But Adam noticed that after the first dance, Piper was surrounded by young men signing her dance card. She was lovely indeed, Adam had to admit to himself, and seeing her being the center of attention and glowing under the compliments from the admirers, he began to feel pangs of jealousy-and desire. Adam had supposed that he would feel relieved if she was taken off his hands; then he would have a chance to dance with many other young ladies, most of them older than Piper since the dance was only open to graduating students and their choice of partners. But it wasn't so; Adam felt a deep disappointment as he watched Piper taken out onto the floor and twirled around, her feet moving lightly. She seemed to be able to hold her end of any conversation, not talking too much but listening graciously with a small, gentle smile on her face and every so often, she would glance Adam's way and he would give her a slight nod. But being a gentleman, Adam looked around and then approached young women who weren't dancing. Therefore, he passed Piper on the dance floor many a time, looking over at her.

During a small intermission, Adam joined the others as they milled into the refreshment room and worked his way over to Piper.

"Now, Miss Naismith," Adam said, an ironic grin on his face, "here I have escorted you to the dance and haven't had a chance to reap reward for my efforts. Have you any spaces left on your dance card?"

"I do believe that I may, Mr. Cartwright." Piper pulled the looped cord off her wrist and handed it to Adam.

He glanced at it. "I think…have you a pencil, Miss Naismith?" She looked in her small reticule and pulled out a pencil, handing it to him and Adam wrote his name in two places. He handed the card and pencil back to her. "I have the next dance, the waltz and the last dance. After all, I should. We may have to dance out of here and all the way home in order to be on time as your father commanded."

Piper smiled and told him that she would be pleased to dance with him and when the music started, Adam put his hand on her waist and pulled her into the ball room where he held her close to him and fell in love with the young woman with the adoring hazel eyes and the small, full mouth that was as dewy as a rose on a spring morning. And Adam wondered what it would be like to crush her underneath him and feel her respond to his passion. And if the dance as his partner was any indication, it would be with matched passion and desire. For one who wasn't quite 17, Piper Naismith held an overwhelming attraction for him and she leaned into him in such a way as if to entice him. And Adam didn't realize how she would, from that moment on, fill his thoughts and disturb his dreams causing him many a fitful night.


	6. Chapter 6

SIX

Ben Cartwright arrived in Boston to see his son's acceptance of his diploma, a somber and venerable ceremony and he was proud. "There is our son, Elizabeth," he said to the heavens as Adam rose to shake hands with all the people who were so instrumental in his accomplishments. And afterwards, Ben hugged his son, tears in his eyes. He didn't think that he could be any happier in his son, especially at the reception afterwards when the professors spoke so glowingly of Adam.

Ben wanted Adam to return to the Ponderosa with him but Adam told him of the internship and when Ben met Professor Naismith who spoke highly of Adam's talent, Ben accepted the fact that his son may never return to the Ponderosa but continue on in Boston or some other city where he could apply his gifts. And it was with a poignant sadness that Ben hugged his son goodbye and left on the train for the lengthy return home.

And so Adam was accepted as an intern with the architectural firm of Athens, Priestly and Coleman. He and another graduate, Allen Bracewell worked diligently long, strenuous hours observing and submitting blueprints per the directions of the partners. Adam learned a great deal about practicality and wasn't so certain that he liked having to quash his grand plans to fit into someone's instructions to keep the cost as low as possible. Where he envisioned travertine marble, the building material of Michelangelo and Bernini, it ended up being plain granite. While he pictured a room or hall paneled with glowing maple, it was changed to stained pine.

So Adam became disenchanted with the idea of building grand edifices that would survive unscathed through millenniums and realized that most of architecture was struggling to underbid other firms and to promise to bring in a structure using the least expensive materials possible but still creating a decent façade of some type of grace. And that was what Adam missed; the graceful elegance of the buildings he had designed during his schooling-the cathedrals that rose to the heavens to imitate man's striving for perfection and for the love of God, the beauty of materials that were found on earth that emphasized man's roots from the dust and clay, the interior designs that brought an ease and comfort to a man so that his home soothed his mind and became a sanctuary from the suffering of the outside world.

And all those desires and strivings for elegance and beauty, Adam found satisfied in Piper Naismith.

Piper had pled with her father to allow her to remain in Boston; this could become her home and she missed her father so. The professor had been reluctant-she had yet to finish her schooling but Piper, who had enquired of the housekeeper where a girls' school was, presented the option of finishing up at a small, private girl's school in Boston. And since Naismith carried around guilt of neglecting his daughter and leaving her upbringing to his sister after his wife died, caved in to her request which was delivered with an expression of hope. And so Piper stayed in Boston. But the actual reason, which she didn't share with her father, was that she had fallen in love with Adam Cartwright.

Piper knew that had she mentioned her love for her father's former student, that he would have packed her off to Virginia again; he would have told her that she was too young to know what love was but Piper felt she wasn't. She was in love with the most wonderful young man in the world, at least in her eyes. And it wasn't as if Adam was the first young man who had squired her socially. Her aunt had invited a very nice young man from a good family to visit many times and he had escorted Piper to church and to parties. Piper had even allowed him to kiss her and up until she set eyes upon Adam, she had been resigned to feeling mild affection and believing it was love but Adam excited her emotions to heights she had only imagined and that she had read about in the novels she and her friends secretly read and passed among themselves. These novels told of men who kissed women's necks and breasts and had descriptions of the heroines "transports of ecstasy." But Piper knew that they were just novels and never expected feelings such as that to occur in actual life. But she thought of Adam constantly and wondered if he thought of her.

Piper often managed to wrangle a dinner invitation for Adam who lived in a small room in a boarding house with Allen Bracewell. Both of them, Adam and Allen, depended on monthly stipends from their fathers as the architectural firm paid them nothing, considering it pay enough that they shared their knowledge with the two young, eager, talented men.

"Oh, Father," Piper said, "I'm certain that Mr. Cartwright could use a good meal as I saw him on the street just yesterday and he looked so thin and wan. And I am sure that you remember your days as a poverty-stricken youth."

"Oh, really, my dear? And how did you happen to come across Mr. Cartwright on your way home from school?"

"Oh, well…I may have taken a route by his office but nevertheless, may I offer an invitation?"

And since Professor Naismith loved his daughter and respected Adam, he allowed her to proffer many an invitation. And then Piper invited Adam to her 17th birthday party and he showed up, a small gift in his hand-two embroidered handkerchiefs. Adam knew that he would have to sacrifice something, only eating turnips or potatoes for a few days to pay for them, but he couldn't attend and give Piper nothing. But he promised himself that when he could, he would buy her something grand for he had come to care for her greatly. Ever since the first time he had held her next to him, felt her small, supple body move in rhythm with his, the thought of marrying her was born in his imagination and he found that Piper Naismith popped up in his thoughts at the oddest moments.

Despite Piper's youth and naiveté, Adam found her delightful-or maybe it was because of that. She was a beautiful girl but seemed not to be aware of it as so many women were. It was as if no one had ever told her and perhaps, they hadn't. Adam did find her engagingly ingenuous. But then she wasn't yet 17 and he had turned 20 in May. But in the west, some girls were married at sixteen and by the time they were twenty, they had already born three children and were heavy with the fourth. But Adam couldn't envision Piper in that type of life.

And Piper had an innate elegance and a quickness of mind that Adam found challenging. And so, he came courting and he would squire her to social dances and take her out for ice cream and day trips. Most places they would walk but occasionally, he would hire a hack and they would ride and Piper begged him to let her take her family's carriage but Adam was too proud. Piper chastised him and reminded him that "pride goeth before a fall," but he laughingly told her that he couldn't fall much more than being a poverty-stricken intern who had to depend on the generosity of his father. And he added, couldn't even court a beautiful girl properly.

When they were alone, Adam and Piper would talk about a possible future and Piper, despite all the things her aunt who raised her had told her about how to behave in situations and that all men were only after seeing how much a woman would give to him, told Adam that she loved him.

Adam was shocked. No girl or even the women he had lain with, had told him that they loved him. Adam couldn't even remember if his father ever having said it to him, although he knew that his father did. His father had said that he was proud of him, was concerned about him and had looked at his eldest son with love in his eyes, but Adam couldn't remember ever having heard the words. And here was this beautiful young girl, not quite yet a full woman, and she told him that she loved him and it was then that Adam felt the full weight of the responsibility of having a girl's heart; the power was dizzying; he knew that he had to be careful, especially since he loved her in return.

So they would sit on her father's porch after dinner or after he had walked her home from some social adventure and they would quietly talk and it was Piper who had first kissed him. Adam hadn't known how to react.

"Did I make a mistake in kissing you, Adam?" Piper looked at him with her large, dark eyes, ready to cry. "I know that the girl isn't supposed to be so forward but I've dreamed of it so many times."

"Piper, I…you're so young."

"Not much younger than you; I'm seventeen now. I'll be eighteen in a few months and then I can do what I choose."

"Piper," Adam said. "I don't think that…"

"I know what you think," she interrupted. "You must think that I'm just a silly girl but I'm not. I have realistic expectations from life but I also know how I feel about you and I'm not asking that you love me if you don't. But, Adam, I love you. I do and I always will." And then she leaned into him and Adam put his arms around her and he kissed her and he felt her submit to him and he knew that despite her age, he was kissing a woman, not a girl. And from then on, the two knew that they would marry.

Piper and Adam talked about Adam joining the architectural firm-the partners had made comments to Adam about how they had high hopes that he would continue to stay in Boston and how they could surely use someone with his talents. They had even asked him outright if he would be interested in working with them, perhaps as a junior partner. So Adam and Piper decided that once Adam was established, he and Piper would marry. And Piper felt as if she had her heart's desire in Adam and he was happy with Piper. He wanted her as his wife, as his partner in life and patiently waited for her, satisfying himself with kisses and caresses until they could marry and he could indulge his sexual desire for her.

Adam was singing to himself as he climbed the few stairs to the Naismith's porch and rang the bell**. **He couldn't remember ever having been so happy. He had all he had ever desired.

"Mrs. Edwards," Adam said when the housekeeper opened the door, "you looked incredibly lovely tonight. And is Miss Piper ready or is she, as all women tend to be, not quite ready yet?" Adam was taking Piper to a lecture on campus; a man was going to relate his adventures in the Congo accompanied with slides of all the strange, unique animals he encountered. Professor Naismith was initially loathe to allow Piper to go-he feared that there might be slides of naked inhabitants of the mysterious area. But Piper had pled with him to let her go and so, since it was with Adam, he allowed it but only with the promise that should there be inappropriate images for a young girl, that Piper would close her eyes and not gawk.

"You've come for Miss Piper but she…come in Mr. Cartwright." Mrs. Edwards stepped back, holding the door open.

"She's not ill, is she?" Adam asked, pulling off his bowler as he entered the house. Something was wrong. Mrs. Edwards wasn't her happy, welcoming self and Adam felt a quiet about the house; his heart pounded in anticipation of some dread event.

"No, she's well but I'm to show you into the den." And Mrs. Edwards led Adam into the room at the back of the house.

The Professor stood when Adam entered. Piper looked up at him; she had been crying, her eyes swollen, her nose red and she held a crumpled handkerchief-one of two he had given her for her birthday-in her fist. Beside her sat a woman whom Adam had never seen. She was scowling at him.

"Adam," Naismith said, "I'm afraid that Piper will be unable to accompany you tonight; she needs to pack as she is returning to Virginia with her aunt, my sister, Audrey"

"I've told you," Piper cried, standing up, "I won't go! I won't leave Boston!'

"Because of him?" the aunt said.

"Yes," Piper stated. She looked at Adam with desperation. "I love him," she stated with an openness and honesty that took her father and aunt off guard.

"You stupid girl," the aunt said. "You have no idea what love is. Look at him. What is he? A poor boy-not even a grown man-who is probably only using you to further your father's financial and professional assistance."

Adam felt the anger rise in his throat. "Now wait a moment," Adam said. "What you say isn't true. I care for Piper very much; I'm not using her for any purpose other than enjoying her company."

"And I suppose that you love her. That's what you're going to say next, correct? You are more than willing to take advantage of the tender feelings of a young girl." Piper's aunt stood in front of Adam. She didn't like this dark-haired man courting her vulnerable niece; he had an animal sexuality about him that she found disturbing and despite her brother's defense that he was intelligent and kind to Piper, she didn't want him near her beloved niece. She hadn't raised Piper to be turned over to this man and his hungers.

"I'm not taking advantage of her and I resent your accusation." Adam stopped and looked at Piper's face, her sweet face that always made his heart fill with joy and then he stated what he knew to be true; "And yes, I do love her. I love her and want her for my wife one day-hopefully soon." The words surprised even him and Piper ran to Adam and threw her arms around his neck.

"Oh, Adam," she said through fresh tears, "I knew that you loved me. I felt it."

"Abner," the aunt reprimanded her brother, "do something. Piper is only seventeen. This is nonsense! She needs to come back with me until she is old enough to make serious decisions about her life. Obviously you have no control over her! How can you allow her to behave in this manner? Like a cheap hussy! And in your own house."

"Piper…" the professor said, walking over to his daughter as Adam held her. Adam gently took her arms from his neck but Professor Naismith then grabbed Piper's wrist and pulled her away from him. "Piper, this behavior is unacceptable. Adam, please leave my home. Piper will be gone in the morning and I'm sorry that the circumstances of her leave-taking couldn't be different."

"I won't go! I've told you, father!" Piper was adamant; she was determined not to leave Boston and Adam.

Adam left the house since he had no other choice, and the last thing he saw was Mrs. Edwards' face, tears rolling down her plump cheeks as she told him goodbye and said that she was so sorry; it was a sad time, she said to Adam-so sad.


	7. Chapter 7

**SEVEN**

Adam walked the streets of Boston, his mind in turmoil. He was stunned by the events. He had been so happy just a short time earlier, so happy at the prospect of seeing Piper and spending the evening with her and here she had been snatched from him like Persephone was snatched from the face of the earth by Hades. And Adam had been turned out, never to see Piper again if her aunt had her way. Eventually, Adam decided to go back to the small, drab rooms he shared with Bracewell who was snoring in his room next to the kitchen. Adam threw off his jacket and lay on his narrow bed, crossing his legs at the ankles, staring into the darkness above him, his mind unable to make sense out of what had happened.

"Oh, Piper," he called out into the darkness. And he felt a shudder go through him and a deep sob escaped. He hadn't cried in years and had forgotten how painful it was; the soul wasn't meant to be unhappy, he had told Piper once but now he wondered if sadness wasn't the natural state of man considering that happiness came so rarely, joy occurring merely a few times in a person's life and perhaps, Adam considered, he had reached his allotment.

Adam must have fallen asleep because slowly, the sound of knocking on the door woke him. He sat up and noticed that he was still wearing his clothes and boots. The darkness was thick around him. Perhaps it was the landlord knocking, Adam thought. Something may be wrong. So Adam went to the door and opened it. It was Piper holding a valise which she dropped as soon as she saw Adam.

"Piper," he said in a whisper and she flew into Adam's arms and clung to him. Piper told him that she had left home, that she couldn't leave Adam and she asked him if what he had said about loving her was true. Adam kissed her face, her eyelids and assured her, his lips next to her ear, that he loved her, adored her, and that if she would yield to his request, they could be married that very night. Piper eagerly said yes. She would marry him and so they left, two young people in love, searching for a Justice of the Peace and when they found one and woke him up, they were married and Adam was sure that he had done the right thing. And he and Piper went back to his quarters and Adam woke Bracewell, telling him that he had married. Bracewell gladly left for the rest of the night, saying that he would stay with another friend to give the newlyweds their privacy. And he congratulated them both and kissed the bride. Piper glowed with happiness.

And on his narrow bed in the colorless room, Adam took his bride, his wife, for the first time. He said that he wished he could have covered the bed in rose petals for her as she deserved so much better and that night as they lay in each other's arms, flesh against flesh, Adam swore that one day, one day soon, he would take Piper to Europe and they would have a true honeymoon-a month of nothing more than spending each day in each other's company and lying in each other's arms at night. But Piper swore that nothing could possibly be better than this night in Adam's bed, in the arms of her husband, her love. And Adam tasted her full mouth completely and allowed himself to indulge his desires for her body and she rocked beneath him crying her love for him.

And the next morning the newly married couple went to tell Professor Naismith who had been worried almost to illness and had employed the police of Boston in looking for his 17 year old daughter. With a fury, he grabbed Piper's upper arm and forcibly pulled her from Adam's side and vehemently threatened Adam with arrest if he didn't leave the premises.

Adam was at a loss. His wife was crying, begging him not to go and Adam wanted to strike out at Professor Naismith, to use his fists on the man and take Piper back. They were married and Adam felt he had a claim to his wife.

"I'm not leaving without Piper," Adam said. "We're married and nothing you can say or do will change it." Adam noticed that Piper's aunt came into the room.

"I told you that he was bad news, Abner. You should have sent Piper to me much earlier. It's your fault that this…vulgar young man has debauched Piper."

"No," Adam said, "I didn't debauch her. I love her as I've stated. Please…" Adam pleaded with Professor Naismith.

"You forget," Piper's aunt said, "according to the law, at her age, Piper needs her father's permission to marry and she doesn't have it and I don't think she'll ever have his permission to marry the likes of you. We can get the law after you, have you arrested for seducing her so I would suggest you leave-and right now."

Adam looked at Piper who nodded at him. She broke Adam's heart; she looked defeated and Adam wasn't a fool-he knew when it was best to retreat. He left the home of Professor Naismith under the threat of arrest, and went back to his apartments; he was at a loss as to what else he could do. He needed to think.

Within two days, Piper was gone. She had been forcibly sent to Virginia by her father and within another week, Piper and Adam's marriage was annulled; her aunt had insisted that since Piper wasn't eighteen and did not have her father's permission, it should be wiped out, erased completely. Her brother, Abner complied. Now everything would be as it had been before but Piper had stated that her virginity couldn't be recovered-she had willingly given it to Adam and received a cruel slap across the face by her aunt.

"You will regret your one night with him-with that man; you have made yourself unmarriageable. No decent man will want you now unless you forget this marriage ever occurred," Piper's aunt hissed. And Piper felt helpless. She dropped on her knees to the floor and collapsed in tears, sobbing her grief at the loss of the man she loved so much that she was willing to give up her home and her family for him.

Adam was stunned by the events but found he had no power. He had gone to the magistrate who confirmed that he could be arrested should the professor decide to press charges. And after the annulment and he received the legal papers while at work, it was as if Piper had never existed in his life. He felt as if she had been some airy sylph who vanished from the surface of the earth and Adam was bereft. He decided to quit his apprenticeship and he set off to search for Piper whose aunt resided in Richmond. He found the house after a few inquiries and was informed by a maid that Miss Piper was gone, had been sent away. But Adam refused to believe her and pushed his way into the house, calling out for Piper but the only person who came to him was her aunt. She coldly informed Adam that Piper had been sent away to a school and that if he didn't leave her home immediately, she would have him arrested for violent trespassing since he had forced his way in. Adam left but he stayed in Richmond a few more days, lurking around the modest home but Piper never appeared so he finally returned home to the Ponderosa, a man who had become disenchanted with happy endings and the goodness of a loving God.

And now, thirteen years later, Piper, his wife from so many years ago, sat across from him on a stage and Adam couldn't even speak to her, couldn't even meet her eye and she was another man's wife, not his. And he longed to talk to her, to ask her how she had survived since he himself had been sent to such depths of despair after she was taken from him that he returned home, telling his father that he was despairing of the city and longed for blue skies and fresh air, that his spirit was sick near to death. Adam had chosen to not telling his worried father anything of his bride, of his destroyed marriage. But Adam continued sending letters to Piper addressed to her aunt's home that began with, "My dearest wife, Piper, I long to hear from you…," and wondering if she ever received them.

Before he had left Richmond, he had seen the housekeeper in the yard and had begged her to tell him if she knew where Piper was but she either would not or could not tell him. She denied Adam any information with lowered eyes, not wanting to see the look of grief in Adam's face. "The poor, darlin' boy," she mumbled to herself as she watched Adam walk away, his spirit crushed. She had witnessed Piper's arguments with her aunt and heard the young girl cry in her room at night, cry as if her heart was broken. And that was because it was broken.


	8. Chapter 8

**EIGHT**

"I suppose," Jeffers said, in his whiskey-smooth, southern manner, "that you're staring at me, at us, and wondering why such a beautiful woman would marry a scarred-up blind man? It's like beauty and the beast, isn't it?" He chuckled.

Adam pushed his hat back from his eyes and glanced back and forth at the Jefferses. Piper's face was pale and set in an expression that had obviously become ingrained over the past few years, an expression of suffering-whether physical or mental suffering, Adam didn't know.

"Oh, no," Hoss said, and cleared his throat because he had been staring. "I wasn't wonderin' that at all. But how d'you know that she's such a beauty? I mean, she is, if you don't mind my sayin' so, ma'am, but I was just wonderin' how you know it."

Jeffers laughed. "She told me she was a beauty-I believed her but I guess she could've been lying." And by his grin, Hoss knew that the man was joking. He laughed and even Adam grinned slightly. And then he glanced at Piper; she wasn't smiling.

"Don't be a boor," Piper interrupted sharply. "I doubt these other passengers want to hear your relation of the events of our lives." She noticed that even the two men in the back seats were listening. The more disheveled of the two had even stopped his spitting of tobacco juice out the stage window in order to hear the conversation.

Hoss shifted uncomfortably. He wasn't as cerebral as Adam so Hoss usually went more by instinct and his gut told him that there was a subtext between the Jefferses-much suffering and pain and he didn't want to bring it out. Adam watched intently; this was what he had been wondering, how Piper had come to marry this blind, scarred man.

"Now, Piper, you don't want these men to think that you're a fishwife, do you? You're coming off a mite shrill." Even though Jeffers had a soft voice with the cadence of his southern accent, the words came off as cruel, as if he had called her a fishwife many times before.

"Let them think what they choose," Piper said and her eyes met Adam's briefly and then she continued to look out at the passing scenery, the coach jostling them all. Adam watched Piper, hoping she would turn her head and look at him so that through a look, an expression, he could convey his feelings for her, that she would know that he had never forgotten her, that he still loved her, but she never looked at him and Adam, as well as all the other passengers, listened to Jeffers.

"Don't be peevish, Piper. It is unbecoming. Are you or your brother married, Mr. Cartwright?"

"Um, no sir," Hoss said.

Adam was tempted to jump to Piper's defense and tell Jeffers that he was a cruel son-of-a-bitch and that Piper had once been his wife and he still loved her. Adam even went so far as to lean forward slightly and open his mouth, but he caught himself and sat back against the leather straps that supported his back none too well.

"You see, Mr. Cartwright…" Jeffers started.

"Call me Hoss. Everyone does."

"All right, Hoss, then," Jeffers said. "Please call me Nash. I was on the battlefield and my musket exploded in my face-blinded me-burned me. I imagine that my scars are shocking but I can't see people's reactions and my wife, in an attempt to be kind, I suppose, underplays others' revulsion whenever they see me for the first time. I wasn't even able to see my wife's face when she first saw me like this. I expected her to run screaming from the monster I had become, to divorce me but she stayed. You see, my doctor was honest when I asked him about my appearance and I well know how beautiful my wife is since we knew each other and married long before I became this horror. My lovely wife wants me to wear dark glasses but I want everyone to see what the Union Army did to me-especially for her. I hope people will ask what happened so I can explain. Let them know how the North is determined to destroy those of us in the South."

Hoss glanced over at Adam. He knew how his brother felt about the war, about the South and what he considered its barbaric system of relying on slave labor to support their way of life. But Adam also knew that the North's industries, their textiles and clothing manufacturing relied on southern cotton. And although Adam was also aware that state's rights were another issue as well as economic issues, Adam still wholeheartedly backed the Union. He had often engaged in debates with townsfolk about whether Nevada should lean toward the South or the North and Hoss hoped that Adam wouldn't engage a blind man in a heated debate. Hoss didn't think that Adam would but then, Adam would argue with a fence post if he disagreed with it. Hoss just hoped that Adam would remain silent.

"But I thought you said that it was your musket? What's the Union have to do with that?"

"It was my musket. I was issued an older, smoothbore musket-the barrel was badly fouled. The North, well, they manufactured the newer 58 Springfield but we couldn't get any. We had to manage with the mainly antiquated weapons we had. Many soldiers, most of them mere boys, brought the weapons they had at their homes-their grandfather's rifles or squirrel rifles. Most of us would go steal rifles from Union dead or wounded-those were much coveted. But I hadn't yet pulled a rifle from the still warm fingers of a dead man-couldn't bring myself to do it-to cannibalize the dead but the blockades, the barriers, the Union forced us to even steal ammunition from the dead on both sides-even our own men. But I couldn't. But I should have. I damn well should've.

"It was a small skirmish but I was always in fear. I was reloading as quickly as I could-the Yanks were approaching, shooting and reloading, shooting and reloading but there was so much gunfire smoke that I could barely see what I was doing. And they were pressing down on us. We could hear them but could barely see-it was as if a whole barrage of ghosts were coming for us and there was no killing them. I suppose I fumbled in my panic or my rifle was faulty as they said later-it doesn't really matter. But when I put the rifle to my shoulder and pulled the trigger, the whole thing just exploded and I lay there on the battlefield for hours until someone was able to brave the darkness for they said that it was night, to drag me off for medical care without being shot themselves.

"So I was bandaged as well as a battlefield hospital might and sent home to my wife who tended me and now, she insists that we travel out here where there is peace."

Hoss sat and looked at Jeffers, his face filled with sympathy. "Yeah, I guess that would be somethin' awful to have to go through. So where you two headin'?"

"Sacramento."

"You have family there?" Hoss asked. To him it made no sense to move someplace where there was no family or at least good friends near. Hoss enjoyed his family and those he counted as friends; he felt the support they gave was invaluable and couldn't imagine just taking off and leaving all he loved behind. And that was what he couldn't understand about Adam. Hoss knew that if the right opportunity appeared, Adam would leave and not look behind him.

"No," Nash answered, "we have no family there-or anywhere else. My wife's family has passed…" Adam looked at Piper who finally met his eye. He wanted to say he was sorry; he had been fond of her father and was sincerely grieved that he had passed. "I just agreed to go along with my wife. And man and wife are to cleave to one another, aren't they, my dear?"

"Yes," Piper quietly said and went back to looking off into the distance as if trying to remove herself from the situation, from the coach, from everything around her. And Adam examined her profile, the elegance of her throat where it curved into her neck, the softness of her rounded cheek and the cast of her eyes. He felt himself choke up with emotion at the knowledge that she would never be his, that life had played some cruel trick on them both.

Earlier, Adam had wondered if perhaps God had punished him and Piper for their hubris-Adam in particular. Hop Sing had once told him that a man should never consider himself happy, consider himself well off and take personal credit for it. The gods Hop Sing worshipped punished hubris-severely. A proud parent lost their child; a man proud of his beautiful wife lost her to another man or to death in childbirth. It didn't really matter how a man was punished, just that he was. So a man should always remain humble and grateful that his household gods had seen fit to grant him some joy, any joy for sources of pride or ungratefulness were swiftly obliterated.

Applying Hop Sing's philosophy, Adam decided that he had been too happy when it had come to him and Piper. Hop Sing would have said that his singing with happiness called the gods' attentions to him and so he had to be humbled. And although Adam had shown disdain at Hop Sing's ancient beliefs, in the back of his brain was the basic fear that he had drawn the punishment onto himself and that if he ever again had the chance for happiness, he wouldn't jinx it by being too certain of its permanence.

Hoss and Nash Jeffers settled into conversation, discussing Indian wars and how the Bannocks and Paiutes around Nevada had finally reached a tentative peace but a peace that could easily be disturbed, could easily disrupt into terror. And then Nash asked about the lumber side of the Cartwright business and Hoss, dragged Adam into the conversation and although reluctant, Adam talked about the Ponderosa pines that made up a good part of the forests. Adam explained that there was a great difference in the topography of the Nevada territory depending on whether one was in the North, south, east or west. They had sycamores and maple trees as well as agave plants because their property was expansive and held various terrains.

Hoss told how Hop Sing would search for agave plants so that he could boil down the base of the stalks to get the sweet syrup that he used instead of sugar or maple syrup when money was tight. Hoss also told how, when he and Adam were children, they would have to trek after Hop Sing on the southern side of their property with baskets and collect the stalks before they bloomed. Hop Sing would roast them and they were a snack, tasting sweet and crispy when chewed. And then in the spring, the boys would collect the leaves and Hop Sing would serve them as a side dish for dinner.

Adam noticed that Piper was listening, her attention focused on Hoss and his stories of the Cartwright family. Her face had fallen into softer lines and once again, Adam recognized the seventeen year old girl she was once. And Adam felt a painful sadness rise within him at his loss of her.

The coach began to decelerate and then it came to a stop. Adam opened the door, stepped out and then held out his hands to Piper.

"It's a swing station. C'mon and stretch your legs."

Piper stared at him, barely breathing and then put out her gloved hands and Adam took them and helped her down. She wouldn't look up at him despite the fact that he murmured her name, "Piper. Please." Then Adam turned and helped Mr. Jeffers out of the narrow stage door. Piper went to help her husband but he told her he could manage and didn't need her assistance and for her to go and do what she needed.

Piper saw the station master who stepped out on the porch where there was a long wooden table with chairs. He held a large coffee pot and a stack of tin cups and Piper asked him where she could wash up. He sent her to his kitchen and told her that she could relieve herself in the outhouse behind the house. She was just to go out the back door. And as Piper walked into the stationmaster's small house, she heard him tell the men there was a pump they could use and asked if they wanted any coffee. He warned them that there wouldn't be a rest stop for another three hours.

It wasn't long before they were all back on the stage and rocking off to head further west.

"So, Mr. Jeffers," Adam said, "why did you choose Sacramento?"

"That was my wife's choice. She researches everything, wrote letters, set up a house for us to rent, everything. And then, she transferred the money from the sale of her father's house in Boston…"

"Oh," Hoss said, grinning, "You from Boston, Mrs. Jeffers?"

"Not really. My father, he…" She sat with her mouth slightly open and Adam knew that she was thinking quickly, trying to find a way out.

"My wife's father was a professor at Harvard. Architecture, wasn't it, Piper, my dear?"

"Yes, architecture. And engineering."

"Hey, Adam, you know him? Adam here done gone to Harvard," Hoss explained to Nash Jeffers.

"Yes. He was a brilliant professor and a good man. I'm sorry to hear of his passing, Mrs. Jeffers."

"Thank you, Mr. Cartwright."

"What a small world," Hoss said, smiling broadly.

"Smaller than you'd think, Hoss, but only because you take up so much room in it that you make the rest of us crowd together," Adam said. And he noticed that Nash Jeffers had his head cocked at an angle, his brows drawn, as if he was considering something that was puzzling him. And Adam knew then that Nash was aware that there was something between him, Adam Cartwright, and Nash's own wife.


	9. NINE

**NINE**

Hoss talked about the beauty of Nevada territory and told Nash Jeffers that a few months ago, his family had bought an additional 100 acres to add to the Ponderosa and it just happened to have a small ranch house on it. Hoss was certain that his family, his pa in particular, would love to have a young couple living on it.

Nash Jeffers said that from what Hoss had told him about Nevada, it sounded perfect.

"But, Nash," his wife said, "our money has been sent to Sacramento and the house is waiting for us. We can't just change our minds."

Adam could tell that she was panicking. Piper desperately didn't want to stay so close to him and Adam wondered why. Did she still hold feelings for him and were those feeling love or hate? Adam needed to know.

With impatience in his voice, Nash responded to his wife. "Yes, my dear, we can. We can transfer our money to…what was that city?"

Adam's deep voice answered and Piper quickly looked at him. "Virginia City." Their eyes locked and then Piper looked back to her husband.

"We can't stay in Nevada. We have to go on to California. We had decided, Nash. We would go to California."

"Why are you so afraid of staying in Nevada, Piper? Have you any special reason for not wanting to accept the Cartwright's generosity? Have you, my dear?"

"No," she said quietly. "I have no special reason and I don't mean to seem ungrateful to you, Mr. Cartwright, but…" Piper's voice died.

Nash Jeffers sat listening to his wife's voice, his hands, one on top of the other on the top of his cane. He recognized a tinge of anxiety in her voice. "I just wondered if there was a special reason, a hidden reason that you haven't told me. After all, here in this stage we've run into a former student of your father's and you haven't asked him one question about your father nor he you-as a man or as a professor. Your Aunt Audrey raised you and you spent such little time with him, I would think that you would have inundated Mr. Cartwright with questions about your father by now."

"Perhaps later," Adam said. "I would be happy to share my pleasant memories of your father with you. He was admirable in many ways."

"Did you know he had a daughter, Mr. Cartwright?" Nash asked.

"Yes, I knew."

"Did you know she was so pretty?"

"Every young girl is pretty just by the fact that they're young. Why should Professor Naismith's daughter be any different?"

Hoss was confused. It wasn't like Adam to be so vague; he was straightforward in all his dealings but here he was dancing around trying not to be pinned down with a specific answer.

"Well, I just wondered. Her aunt told me about a scandal in Boston-something about a young girl...who was it about, my dear?"

Adam stopped Nash from continuing. Piper's face revealed that she was anxious. "I think that you've upset your wife, Mr. Jeffers. I don't know where your conversation is going and it's not up to me whether you continue or not, but I won't participate in anything that upsets her so much. Perhaps all the reminders of her father and his passing are too much. "

Nash Jeffers reached out a hand to touch his wife's cheek. "I'm sorry, my dear. Of course, if the conversation upsets you, I'll go no further. You should have told me."

And Adam decided that he didn't like Jeffers. He decided that he heartily disliked Jeffers. Adam understood how a man would be bitter after losing his sight-he could no long gaze at the beauty of his wife and that, among other things, must be a source of despair. But yet, Jeffers also seemed to take some pleasure in punishing her. Adam didn't know why this should be, it just was. And Adam also knew that Jeffers was astute; he had already put together Piper and Adam in Boston and he let Adam know by his comments that he was aware of Piper's annulled marriage; the aunt would have told Jeffers, probably to explain Piper's lost virtue. Jeffers may not have recognized Adam's name right away when he heard it-if he had heard it before-but when he heard that Adam had been at Harvard, that he knew Piper's father, it wouldn't be difficult to come to the conclusion that Piper and Adam Cartwright not only had been in love, but were foolishly romantic enough to marry behind her father's back.

And so Piper unpinned her hat, placed it in her lap, leaned her head against the interior of the coach and closed her eyes as a way to escape. And Adam saw a few tears slide from under the closed lids and she reached up and wiped them away.

It had been dark for two hours when the coach finally pulled into a home station and the stage travelers staggered into the building. Dinner was a watery beef stew and as the stationmaster said, home-made biscuits although Hoss asked the stationmaster if he used sawdust instead of flour. The man just laughed and suggested that Hoss slather on more butter. There was a huge pot of coffee passed among the passengers who all sat at a long, wooden table.

Adam watched, trying not to stare, as Nash Jeffers used his hands to hold his plate and quietly asked his wife questions. She would give him the answers and Jeffers nearly finished his meal. Then Adam felt ashamed of disliking Jeffers so much. The man had not only been disfigured but blinded and needed to rely on his wife to help him. Adam had underestimated the everyday consequences of the man's injuries.

Adam had been entertaining the idea of perhaps winning Piper back, of her going away with him and taking up their love where they had left off but he knew as they sat in the glare of the lamps in the shabby room of the stationmaster's house that it would never happen; Piper would never leave a man who needed her the way that Jeffers did, even if she didn't love him and Adam was certain that she didn't love Jeffers and wondered if she ever had.

Piper, as the only female, was given the sofa in the parlor on which to sleep. It didn't matter that she was married; there was no bed for her to share with her husband and for that, Adam was relieved; he didn't like the idea of their sharing a bed together although he knew that they probably did. And he also knew that as husband and wife, Piper and Nash had relations but he didn't wish to acknowledge it in his consciousness. The station master gave Piper a pillow and a blanket which he assured her were clean. Nevertheless, Piper severely shook the blanket out and checked the pillow for lice before she would use it. Piper asked the station master to please allow her to leave the lamp on. At first he was loathe to allow it-there was the matter of the oil, but then he reconsidered and smiled at the beautiful woman and told her that, of course she could.

The stationmaster was uncomfortable as to where the blind man would sleep. Nash Jeffers said that he had no issue with sleeping on the floor with the other travelers. He wasn't going to be the one to worry about someone stepping on him so he would sleep soundly. The men laughed and the tension was broken, so blankets were issued to all the men and they lay on the floor, using their rolled-up jackets or a bent arm under their head as a pillow. And soon, the parlor was filled with snoring from the men.

Adam lay listening to the heavy, noisy breathing from the men around him and trying to ignore the stench from his traveling companions. On the stage, with the open windows, the smell of the two unwashed men who sat together on the rear seat was bearable but in the tight quarters, the smell was truly unpleasant. And his back was bothering him. He and the others lay on a practically threadbare carpet and it provided no cushioning; Adam thought that he would have preferred the cold, hard ground instead with his saddle as a pillow, albeit a hard one, but at least it would provide a little support for his neck and head.

Adam was adjusting his head on his bent arm and his jacket that he had folded as a cushion, when he heard Piper get up from the couch; she padded out of the room in her bare feet and went into the kitchen. Adam looked around at the sleeping men and then, throwing his blanket off, he followed her.

She stood drinking a glass of water and Adam was again stunned by how lovely she was. Her hair which had been piled on her head was partially down and her face was still soft from sleep.

"Piper?"

She turned quickly and saw him as he looked at her with expectation. "Don't, Adam. I have nothing to say to you and even if I did, this isn't the time." She put the glass down and wondered how she was going to get past him and back into the parlor. She would bluff-just push past him so he wouldn't see what emotional turmoil she was in but as she tried to pass him, Adam reached out and took her arm.

Piper didn't want to struggle with him and perhaps wake her husband or any of the others and she didn't really want to pull away from him and his touch. It was as if she felt the pressure of his palm and fingers on her soul and she was afraid that her knees would buckle. Piper had longed to speak to him, craved to look at him the way she was now. She had so many questions that over the ensuing years had practically driven her to madness. And the irony was that her aunt had deemed her mad after she had dragged Piper back to Virginia.

"Piper, did you ever get my letters? I wrote you constantly. I never found where you went so I sent letters to you at your aunt's house. I waited and hoped but I never heard back from you. Did you ever get them?"

"No. Did you actually think I would? I tried to write to you, tried to post letters but…they sent me away to a…'resort.' That's what it was called."

"What?' Adam stared at Piper, his heart thumping so fiercely that he could hear his pulse in his ears. "What do you mean? Your aunt told me that you had returned to a new school. I asked the housekeeper where when I went to Richmond, but she wouldn't tell me so I continued to write to you at your aunt's. I even sent letters to your father's house in the hope that maybe he or Mrs. Edwards would pass them on to you."

Piper gave a sardonic laugh and pulled her arm from Adam who gently released her. She looked up at Adam's face; to her, even with his day's growth of beard and his swollen eyes from lack of sleep, he was beautiful. But instead of the tender face he had as a young student, he looked hardened, craggy, as if he had suffered much. But then she supposed he had. His mouth was set in a certain hardness, so different from when he was so young and his lips had been gentle and broke easily into a smile-but not now.

"I tried to leave, to travel to Nevada to find your family and hopefully, you." She laughed again but not from amusement. "How foolish I was, as if your family would have accepted some silly girl who claimed to be your wife. I look back now and realize that I was…well, it doesn't matter. My aunt had me found. I didn't know that she had hired a Pinkerton man to find me and he pulled me off the train in Missouri and dragged me back where the doctor declared me hysterical. And so I was sent to a 'resort' which was really a clinic where I was kept under lock and key until I was deemed cured. I wrote letter after letter to you in Boston and begged the staff to post them and they said that they would. But it was all a lie. They were humoring me, keeping me calm and indulging me in my 'delusions,' as the doctor called them. I told him that I wasn't delusional but he said that as long as I continued to rebel, well, that showed a lack of rational thinking and I would only have to stay longer. So I gave up. I was tired and saw how useless everything was. Just useless."

Adam drew her to him and Piper didn't resist. Instead she allowed herself to rest against him, one of his arms around her waist s while his lips rested against her dark hair as his other hand caressed her. After so many years, she found the same joy being next to him, smelling his skin and hearing his warm voice as she had when she met him that first night in Boston when he came into her life.

"Piper?" They both heard Nash's voice call out. Without saying anything, Piper pulled away from Adam and left the kitchen.

Adam stayed behind and heard Piper's soft voice, obviously talking to her husband, explaining her absence. At least Nash couldn't see that he, Adam, was gone as well. He also heard murmurings from the other travelers as they were probably asking what was wrong, why Jeffers had called out and wakened them, and when Adam went back out to finish the night, all was as before but he knew he wouldn't sleep. All he could do was think of Piper and all she had been through.

The next morning as they were washing up before breakfast, Hoss asked Adam where he had been during the night. Adam just looked at him and said that he didn't know what Hoss was talking about. Adam disliked lying but if it would help Piper, he would.

"You know what I'm talkin' 'bout. Last night when Nash Jeffers woke up and was lookin' for his wife. I looked around and Nash was standing next to an empty couch and you was gone too. You know her, Adam? You know her from Boston, don't you?

Adam dried his hands on a towel that he had thrown over his shoulder. "None of your business." He threw the towel to Hoss to use and then he walked into the room off the kitchen that served as a dining room and saw that Piper and Nash were already seated, Piper doling out scrambled eggs and slices of thick bacon to her husband. So Adam sat and said good morning and then the other travelers joined them in breaking their fast.


	10. Chapter 10

TEN

And so it went for the next few days until they finally arrived in Virginia City-but not without incident. The two men in the back seat eventually debarked before Virginia City but were replaced by two older, big-boned women, sisters from Philadelphia who were taking their first trip to San Francisco. Hoss turned in his seat to answer the women's questions about the city, about what to avoid and they giggled and attempted flirting in response. Hoss jokingly told them to be careful not to be shanghaied on some ship headed out to China and they blushed and tittered. Hoss figured that his responses to them may have been the closest that anyone ever came to flirting with them and they appeared to adore him.

And Adam and Piper no longer tried to avoid each other's eyes but Adam did notice that Nash often reached over and touched Piper's arm or leg. It had been decided that the Jefferses would take the house on the Ponderosa. It was furnished as the previous owner had basically just up and left all the furniture and most of his belongings; he had failed at being a rancher and headed off instead to Alaska hoping to do better as a prospector so he had sold his property to Ben Cartwright for a fair amount to get him started on his way.

On the rest of the trip, Jeffers asked Adam many questions about himself and his family. Adam gave as little information as possible, especially when Nash asked again about his studies in Boston. Hoss listened to the conversation, watching Adam's face. He knew that his suspicions were true; Adam had known Piper-he was sure of that. Hoss could tell by the way Adam and Piper looked at one another, as if they had a familiarity between them and yet, there was something more, something that surpassed mere friendship; it embarrassed Hoss to see the naked emotion on Adam's face when he looked at Piper and at one of the rest stops, Hoss told Adam that maybe Nash and Piper staying on the property wasn't such a good idea after all. Maybe they should encourage the Jefferses to go on to Sacramento but Adam disagreed. It was a good idea, he had said, and they could always go on to Sacramento later should they change their minds. Hoss told Adam that if Nash and his wife were going to stay on the property, Adam had better watch himself or there was going to be trouble, bad trouble. Adam just gave Hoss an odd look and rejoined the others on the stage. But Hoss had a sick feeling in his stomach.

Almost half a day from Virginia City, it began to rain, and as it usually did in that part of the country, it became a deluge. Adam pulled down the shades over the windows of the stage, the only glass windows being the ones in the two doors, but rain still managed to flick in when the shades would puff out due to the wind. Lightning cracked in the sky and the wind blew the rain at such an angle that it fought with the air caused by the motion of the stage. Adam convinced Piper to trade places with him so that she wouldn't get rain in her face and on her clothes; the leather straps weren't as comfortable as the solid back of the seat but she would remain drier so she accepted his offer. And as Adam put his hands on her waist to assist her, Piper looked up into Adam's face and the urge to kiss her as she turned her face to him was almost overwhelming.

Hoss comforted the two matronly sisters; storms like this happened all the time, he said. The worst was if there was a flash flood but Hoss told them as the sisters held each other's hands, that there wasn't much chance of the happening because the ground here wasn't the hard clay-it needed to be hard clay that wouldn't absorb the water that allowed it to form the deep crevasses and furrows in the ground. That was how a man knew, Hoss told them, whether or not it was good, safe land or not because a flood like that could wash away all of a man's stock including cows and pigs and sometimes, a house or barn could be so undermined by the water that it collapsed and washed away too.

The stage whip slowed down the stage and then stopped, pulling the horses over to the side until the worst of the rain had passed; the horses were beginning to lose their footing and the driver, dripping wet, joined the passengers inside, Adam and Nash sliding over to make room for him. So for the next forty minutes, they all indulged in polite conversation and the driver pulled out a flask of whiskey and passed it around to all the men. With rain, the air had changed to have a crisp chill. It was spring but the weather could still vary greatly from day to day and even hour by hour.

The rain finally ended and Adam pulled up the shades on his side while Hoss did on the other side and the inner air that had become humid and dank from all the people inside, was a welcome change even with the chill. The driver debarked but was back in a few minutes.

"Have to ask you all to walk for a short ways. Looks like the rain made the road so mucky that the horses won't be able to get the needed footin' to pull the coach up the incline lessen' you get out and carry a bit of luggage with you. It'd be only for 'bout a quarter mile, maybe a bit more."

"What?" the two women in the back seat asked. "Are we going to have to walk?"

" 'Fraid so, ladies, the driver said. "Them horses need a lighter load to keep their footin'. Don't want them fallin' in the traces or for the stage to become mired in the muck." Piper and Adam smiled at one another; the two elderly ladies combined were probably over three hundred pounds alone.

The travelers disembarked and the driver handed valises and portmanteaus randomly to the passengers to carry, not quite emptying the rear leather boot. Adam pulled Piper and Nash back, telling them that when the horses started, they would flick up mud.

"Does it matter?" Piper asked. "I'm practically up to my ankles in mud anyway."

"Now, Piper," her husband said, "Aren't you enjoying this grand adventure? Here, in the most unlikely of places, you meet an old acquaintance of your beloved father's and perhaps, if your memory improves, a friend of yours."

Piper and Adam looked at one another.

"What is it, Piper? Have you nothing to say? Or are you and your old friend exchanging glances, longing glances but also ones of complicity?" Nash turned his head with the odd upward way he had as if searching for light, toward his wife who was holding his arm with one hand while she carried her small valise in the other. Adam was on his other side, a valise tucked under one arm and a portmanteau in his hand while he supported Nash Jeffers with his other. Their feet were slipping slightly in the mud and Hoss, who was practically loaded down like a pack mule with valises, was helping the two sisters who held up their skirts and fussed and bemoaned the now dirty hems of their dresses and the mud that would end up drying and caking on their patent leather short boots.

"Watch your step," Adam said brusquely while he pulled up on Jeffers' arm.

Nash laughed, not one of amusement but a sardonic laugh. "I could interpret that remark literally or figuratively, Mr. Cartwright. You could be telling me to watch where to place my feet on this slippery ground or you could be telling me that I may be going too far in my comments about a relationship between you and my wife. She is my wife, you know. A married woman."

"I know she's married. Why are you insistent on reminding me?"

"I noticed that earlier, she slipped. You know what I'm talking about, Piper, and you also know that I'm not talking about the ground. You started to refer to him as Adam and you and he never said to refer to each other by your first names. That would have been presumptuous of him to do so-would hint at a certain familiarity. Are you a religious man, Mr. Cartwright?"

"Depends on the situation," Adam dryly answered.

Nash gave a small laugh. "Thou shalt not cover thy neighbor's wife. And we are going to be neighbors, aren't we? Or are you going to renege on the offer?"

"It's primarily up to my father if the offer stays." Adam trudged on ahead and glanced at Piper who stared directly ahead of her, not even looking down at her footing as she struggled with the unsure ground. She had stopped caring about any mud clinging to her skirts and coating her shoes.

"So," Nash asked, "I may be blind but Piper and I were married for four years before this-before I lost my sight, so I know her. Actually, I know her better now than I did before. She is so long-suffering, such a martyr to stay with a blind man she doesn't love anymore-if she ever did-just due to some vows she took. Has she always been so noble, Mr. Cartwright?"

Adam considered pushing Nash down, face-first, into the mud, to let him breathe in the thick, viscous soil until it choked him and he drowned. But instead, it was Piper whose footing gave and she fell into the mud, dropping her elegant valise and falling onto her hands and knees. Adam let go of Nash and hurried around him to pick up Piper who began to cry.

"It's too much, it's all too much," she sobbed. She pulled off her gloves and left them in the mud. Her sleeves were filthy to above her elbows and the front of her skirt was begrimed with mud up to and over her knees. She couldn't stop the sobs that shook her and Adam crooned consoling words to her. Nash couldn't see them so Adam held her close, comforting her. Hoss and the two sisters turned to watch and the sisters exchanged quick glances with one another. Hoss looked down in embarrassment.

Finally, they were all over the rise and the driver reloaded the luggage and helped the sisters and Nash in. Hoss and Adam were the last ones in after they helped Piper who was almost limp, back into the coach. They rode the rest of the way in silence except for Nash telling his wife that he was sorry for distressing her; he hadn't meant what he said about her and Mr. Cartwright. Piper told him it was of no matter; not much mattered anymore, she said and the sadness and hopelessness in her face and voice broke Adam's heart.

Ben and Joe were waiting for the stage as it pulled into Virginia City. Hoss and Adam stepped out, handing down the two sisters who thanked Hoss profusely for his kindness and insisted that if he were ever in Philadelphia that he must come to visit them. And they informed him, that their brother had the loveliest unmarried daughter and they would adore for Hoss to meet her.

But Ben and Joe were both distracted by the blind man with the burned and scarred skin and his beautiful wife whose dress' skirt and its sleeves up to the elbows were caked in dried mud. She looked weary and moved almost as if in a trance.

Adam introduced them as Mr. Nash Jeffers and his wife. Ben shook Nash's hand while his wife barely nodded. Ben noted that Adam stood protectively by her side although she barely noticed how Adam watched her. Hoss, after the sisters went off to spend the night in the hotel until the next morning's stage, told his father how Nash Jeffers had come to take up the offer of renting the old Franklin house. Ben agreed that it was a wonderful idea but told them that tonight, they were welcome to stay at the Ponderosa.

Joe pulled down his hat and Adam noticed the odd look on Joe's face. He wondered what it was for, if it was due to Nash's blindness.

"Joe," Ben said, "drive Mr. and Mrs. Jeffers to the Ponderosa, would you? Settle them in the downstairs bedroom. I need to talk to Hoss and Adam about our other guest. We'll hire a rig at the livery."

At that, Piper Jeffers turned; she seemed to become aware of her surroundings suddenly. "Mr. Cartwright, we, my husband and I, will stay here in the hotel. We don't want to be an intrusion. Actually, it would be better if we stayed here in town. I…it's been a trying journey for both of us and I actually would have preferred to have already reached my destination, to be finished traveling. At least for a while. Please."

"Piper," Nash said, "if the Cartwrights have been so kind as to offer…"

"No," Piper said with a sense of finality. "Thank you, Mr. Catrtwright. And I do mean that. I don't want to seem ungrateful but if you would care to be generous, if you or your sons would assist with our luggage, that's all I require and that would be enough largesse. We can discuss the house some other time-perhaps tomorrow after my husband and I have both rested or the day after that. Whatever would be most convenient for you."

Ben was slightly stunned. The woman had seemed so passive and then she became the one to set the boundaries. "Well, if that's what you would really like." And Ben looked back at Adam because he and Mrs. Jeffers were looking at each other, both of them with their jaws set, determined. "Joe, would you take Mr. and Mrs. Jeffers to the International House. Just drive the buckboard over since the bags are already loaded and then join us at the Silver dollar."

"I'll drive them, Joe," Adam said and he started to assist Piper onto the seat.

"Adam," Ben said, "I really need to talk to you and Hoss about another matter. Let's go have a talk." Then Ben was afraid that Mrs. Jeffers might incorrectly assume that he had a problem with her and her husband as renters. "And Mrs. Jeffers, I assure you that this matter is entirely exclusive of you and your husband. I am pleased to have someone to live on the property. Nothing is sadder than an abandoned house. I look forward to having you and your husband on the Ponderosa as neighbors."

Ben and Nash exchanged a few more words while Adam helped Piper up. She quietly thanked him and smoothed down her mud-stained skirts. "It'll all work out, Piper," he said quietly but she just looked at him with vacant eyes. She was so very weary with life and its struggles; fighting fate was vain, that she knew, so she just wanted to give in to the winds that were blowing her around as if she were nothing more than a fallen leaf from a tree. And Adam stepped back while Joe and Ben helped Nash up and then Joe drove the few blocks to the hotel.

"C'mon, Adam, Hoss," Ben said. "Let's go. I may just have a whiskey as well as a beer."

Hoss and Adam looked at one another. Their father hadn't yet asked them about the sale of the cattle and here, he had mentioned another guest and Adam thought that his father looked drawn, as if he hadn't slept well for many nights. And he hadn't.


	11. Chapter 11

**ELEVEN**

Ben, Hoss and Adam sat at a table in the far corner of The Silver Dollar and one of the girls came over to ask what they would have.

"Three beers and a whiskey chaser for me," Ben said.

Adam gave a small laugh. "Things aren't that bad, Pa. I sent you that wire saying how much the cattle buyer in Abilene paid and there was no problem. Hoss even managed to find renters for the property. So I'm going to guess that the problem is this 'other' guest."

"Yeah, Pa," Hoss said, leaning his chair back while the saloon girl placed the beers before them.

"Be back in a minute with your whiskey," the girl said. All three drank deeply from their mugs and the girl returned quickly with Ben's shot of whiskey. He downed it. Then he held his beer mug with both hands and looked down at it, considering what he was going to say. Adam and Hoss exchanged looks.

And then Ben began. "It appears, at least according to what Montague said and the letter he brought…"

"Montague?" Adam asked.

"Ain't he the one that came with that Countess Chadwick a few years ago?" Hoss brought his chair down with a resounding thump on all its legs.

"Yes," Ben said, "that Montague."

"What is it, Pa? More trouble with Lady Chadwick? She isn't up to her old tricks again, is she?" Adam felt a cold shiver run through him. Inger, Hoss' mother, had told him that it meant that a goose had walked over his grave wherever that would be one day and suddenly Adam had the image of the three gray geese that ran freely around the Ponderosa, one gander and two geese. They had always honked at Lady Chadwick and she was afraid of them as their long, supple necks would strike out at her like rattlesnakes. Once the gander practically chased her out of the front yard and into the house, its wings held out and flapping as if it were flying. Linda Lawrence had tried to convince Hop Sing that the gander would make a very nice Sunday dinner and Hop Sing was appalled; the large nasty-tempered goose was almost a pet and would follow Hop Sing around the kitchen garden at the side of the house, waddling behind him hoping to receive a treat of some sort for he always kept a few pieces of bread or biscuit in his apron pocket to feed the gander.

"But think how good a nice roast goose would taste?" Linda Lawrence had said during her only visit to the Ponderosa where she had unsuccessfully tried to manipulate Ben into marrying her.

"Him too stringy. Old goose, mean like me. Besides," Hop Sing had explained, "Goose guard the house. He better than dog-honk at strangers. Chase away polecats from hen house. Need goose." And Hop Sing went back to his work.

Joe walked into The Silver Dollar, looked around and then came over to the table and joined his brothers and father and the saloon girl, Sandy, who brought him over a cold beer without anyone asking.

"Thanks, Sandy," Joe said, taking her hand and giving it a kiss. "You'll make someone a wonderful wife,"

"Just not you, right?" she said, taking off Joe's hat and ruffling his hair. "Enjoy your beers, gentlemen and, beautiful." she added, addressing Joe, "I put a little rat poison in yours." Adam and Hoss laughed while the girl sauntered away from their table, Joe watching the swing of her hips in her blue satin dress. Then they all turned back to the matter at hand.

"Did the Jefferses get settled into the hotel?" Adam asked Joe.

"Yeah, they have a first floor room because he's blind. They didn't ask for it but Justin, he gave it to them but they didn't really seem to care. Those Jefferses, they're strange but even with mud all over her, that Mrs. Jeffers sure is pretty. How'd she fall in the mud?"

"It's a long story." Adam turned his attention back to his father. "So is Montague our house guest?" Adam asked. He had no particular issues with Montague who had actually turned out to be a good man. His only fault was Montague's devotion to serving a calculating, selfish, manipulative woman-Lady Linda Lawrence Chadwick.

Joe looked to his father and Adam noticed how Joe ducked his head. It was going to be bad news.

"No, Montague isn't our guest. He brought the news that Linda, Lady Chadwick died about a year ago, apparently a miserable, drawn-out death, and she left a letter to be given to me. Montague brought it in person to explain, to confirm that it was authentic. I was worried that it was a trick-I'd already been duped by her twice, so I appreciated the fact that Montague traveled all the way here from England to see me." Ben looked at Joe.

"The houseguest is Linda's son, the new Count of Chadwick-for what it's worth anymore. According to Montague, the title is now worthless and the estate is broke, all the money gone. Apparently Percival, Linda's son, gambled away everything. I would say that he's like his father who won the estate by gambling-winning the title and the property in a game of chance. Funny about chance. It's always 50/50, no matter how you try to stack the odds in your favor."

There was a silence that fell over the table. "What do you mean by, you 'would' say he's like his father?"

"According to Montague and Linda's letter, I'm Percival's father." Ben couldn't meet Adam's eye. Hoss, after a few minutes, could eventually accept it but not Adam. After all, Adam had been with his father on the fur-selling trip to New Orleans where Ben met and was enchanted by the beautiful and charming, Linda Lawrence, the fur buyer's young daughter. And before Ben knew it, he and Linda Lawrence were engaged to be married. He never could quite follow how it had happened but despite her previous betrothal to Lord Chadwick, Linda managed to contrive a way that Ben proposed-or appeared to propose. But Adam had never warmed to Linda Lawrence and when Linda told Ben her plans to send Adam away to school and for Ben to sell his property in Nevada and live in New Orleans, had even found their future home on one of the best streets in New Orleans, Ben came to his senses. He realized that he had allowed a beautiful, sensuous woman to appeal to his longings and desires for a woman to share his life. And there was that one night, that one time when, with a ten year old Adam waiting for his father in the hotel room, Ben had enjoyed the delights of Linda's body and now his sin had a face and a name and had shown up on his doorstep. He had another son-Lord Percival Benjamin Lawrence Chadwick.

"What?" Adam felt the earth shift. He had another brother but not just any brother, Lady Chadwick's son. Adam's head swam. First there was Piper who brought back the memories that flooded him with longing and pain; he suffered again all the feelings he had managed to survive so many years ago and now all those old wounds were opened again-but then, Adam had thought, he had never really healed. So many times over the years he had thought of Piper, wondered where she was, what she was doing and had to go downstairs and take a shot of whiskey or bourbon to help him sleep. Hop Sing had always sung the praises of chamomile tea but Adam stuck with the surefire cure of hard liquor.

"Pa," Hoss said, "how long's he been here?"

"A little over a week now."

"So this Percival…" Adam began.

"Percy," Joe added.

"What?" Adam turned to him.

"He goes by Percy. Or Lord Chadwick but I can't bring myself not to laugh about him being a Lord." Joe sat forward, grinning. "He wanted Hop Sing to call him Lord Chadwick. That little sissy of a…"

"Joe!" Ben reprimanded. "Remember, he's your brother the same as Adam and Hoss and just because he was raised elsewhere with different traditions doesn't mean that he should be a source of derision."

"Sorry, Pa," Joe said and sat back in his chair but he shot a look at Adam that insinuated that even Ben didn't care for Percy and that Percy deserved more than just to be derided.

"Are you so very certain that he's your son-our brother? I mean you and I know how conniving Linda Lawrence was. Maybe this is just another means to…"

"Adam," Ben stopped his eldest son from continuing. "I'm as sure that he's my son as I am about any of you. After all, a man can only take the mother's word that a child is his; there's no other way. No other way. Besides, after what Montague said…"

Adam studied his father who now looked almost ten years older than when Adam and Hoss had left over a month ago. "What did Montague say?" Adam asked quietly and Ben told him that it was long story. Ben ordered another round of beers and proceeded to explain the situation to Hoss and Adam starting with Saturday before last when Percival and Montague showed up at the Ponderosa.


	12. Chapter 12

**BTW, a guest reviewer reminded me that England doesn't have "counts" which I knew because someone else had told me (maybe the same person?) on the first draft published elsewhere. I thought I had corrected them all to "Lord Chadwick" but apparently I missed one. Anyway, thank you for the correction.**

**TWELVE**

Ben sat in his favorite chair as he read the paper. And although it wasn't a particularly chilly day being spring, Hop Sing had started a fire to chase off the chill that filled the house in the mornings. The embers were now dying down and along with the cup of coffee by his side and the deep, comforting pulls on his pipe, Ben Cartwright was content. His youngest son, Joe, was out checking line and since it was Saturday, Ben was to take the strong box and give the hands their week's pay that afternoon. And then with yelps of delight, the hands would ride to Virginia City to spend their money, as Ben put it, on "wine, women and song." Joe, of course, would leave for town after dinner to enjoy himself as well.

There was a heavy knock at the door followed quickly by another; someone was pounding with the brass knocker on the solid, massive door. Ben rose to answer it but Hop Sing came from the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron.

"I get," Hop Sing said, and Ben sat back down only to rise again when Hop Sing opened the door and Montague, Lady Chadwick's business manager and confidante was standing at the door. The man was tall and broad shouldered and practically filled the doorway as much as Hoss did. And because of this, Ben didn't immediately notice, the small, fine-boned young man standing behind him until Montague stepped aside and gave place to him.

"Montague!" Ben said. "I wasn't expecting you. Is Lady Chadwick with you?"

Montague gave a wry smile and the young man came out from behind him, stepped into the house, and walked a few steps more and then stopped and looked around. "No," he said in a cultured British accent, "My mother is unfortunately, and with perfect timing on her behalf, dead. She expired right before the money did." The young man turned to Ben and gave a slow, arrogant nod to Ben. "I am her son, Percival Benjamin Lawrence Chadwick."

The name "Benjamin" made both Hop Sing and Ben take note, especially of the wry smile on Percival's face. "But you may call me Percy. Hopefully, not with the same tone of disdain my mother did nor with the total absence of my name as Lord Chadwick did. He never cared for me and I sincerely doubt that my mother did as well."

Percy wandered, watched by Ben, Hop Sing and Montague, further into the house and sat down in Ben's red, leather chair. He ran his hands over the arms. "Very nice," Percy said, "but as you can see, I'm not quite tall enough to rest my feet on the table-this chair will have to be moved closer. You! China boy! Come push this chair closer."

Hop Sing, his brows furrowed, looked at Ben. "Hop Sing no slave! Go finish cooking." And then Hop Sing turned and began complaining and cursing in his native Chinese. Halfway to the kitchen, Hop Sing turned and shook his finger at the young man and then made a stab in the air with his forefinger and spat after a series of exclamations.

"Oh, my," Percival said, "I do believe I angered him!" Then he laughed delightedly. "We will come to an understanding, he and I, or the poor Chinaman will have to go."

"Now hold on just one damn minute," Ben said, striding over to the chair. "This is my chair and I don't cotton to feet on the table. Now I don't know who you think you are, but no one, not even my most valued guest can treat Hop Sing or anyone else on this ranch in such a high-handed manner."

Percival smiled up at Ben. "Well, I suppose that you do have a prior claim and it is your home but I must say, when it comes to being a host, you lack. But then, well, you asked who I think I am. I know who I am-Father." And Percival grinned even wider. This was better than he had imagined it would be. He had already made the first strike to destroy this man whom his mother so hated and wanted to take revenge upon for rejecting her twice. And although he and his mother didn't hold any particular affection for one another, they did have a mutual hate for Ben Cartwright and a thirst for destruction.

Ben stood dumbstruck. He turned to look at Montague who still stood in the doorway.

"Montague, what the hell is this about?"

"May I come in, sir?"

"Of course, come in." Ben was flustered.

Montague picked up two large portmanteaus and carried them in to sit them in front of Ben's desk so they would be out of the way. "Perhaps," Montague said, "we should sit."

"Of course," Ben said, motioning for Montague to sit on the settee.

"Call the China boy to fetch us some tea," Percy said petulantly. "This is the most barbarian country! No one respects customs"

Ben glared at the young man. He had sandy blond hair and the front swung down at an angle and he tossed his head, more as a habit than anything else, to keep it out of his eyes. He had a small mustache that elegantly curved around his delicate mouth. He was dressed in a high collar with the usual tie for a proper Victorian gentleman and had long, tight, fawn breeches and a navy blue jacket, narrowly cut.

"His name is Hop Sing and I would thank you to call him that and only that." Ben stomped to the entrance of the kitchen and asked him to please brew some tea for their guests.

"Some tea sandwiches would be nice," Percy sang out. So Ben asked Hop Sing to make a few sandwiches as well. Then he joined Montague and Percy.

"Now, Montague, would you please explain all this."

"I will, sir, the best I can. After Lord Chadwick died…"

"It was assumed to be of a heart-attack," Percy said, his elbows on the arms of the chair, his fingers steepled, "but since the Lord was alone with my dear mother, well, there is no absolute cause in my opinion; I think it was a suspicious death and that mother should have been investigated. You know how mother could be, don't you, father? How manipulative and devious she was Oh, but of course, you don't know since you and she were never married. I do believe that makes me a bastard, doesn't it? But then, I have been called that name so many times as a manner of insult that it was finally a relief to find that it was true."

Ben didn't remark, just turned back to Montague.

"I shall continue, sir. After Lord Chadwick died, that was when Lady Chadwick and I came to America. She had confided to me that Percival…was your progeny. She told me, in complete confidence, that when you and she had been younger, you had been in New Orleans where she and her family lived and had become betrothed. Since, she explained, it was certain-at least in her mind-that the marriage was imminent, that she became…" Montague cleared his throat and continued. "That Lady Chadwick agreed to the greatest intimacy and then you left New Orleans. She did not know she had conceived. She went ahead and married Lord Chadwick and went on to England with him and Percival was born a few months later."

Hop Sing came out of the kitchen with a tray holding a teapot, cups and saucers and rare roast beef sandwiches that were huge-just the type the Cartwright boys liked. He sat it down on the table in front of the settee.

"Oh, my good Lord in heaven," Percy said. "This is what passes for tea sandwiches? What about jam on white bread? I'm surprised this heathen didn't slap a whole side a raw beef between a sliced loaf of bread and serve it. This is repulsive-it's practically bleeding. I wouldn't be shocked to hear the sandwich moo! And I hope I'm not expected to eat this peasant, brown bread?"

"What he say?" Hop Sing asked Ben. "I make sandwiches. He not like?"

"No," Percival said, "I definitely do not like. Take this butchered mess away and bring me some sweet crackers, please. I can't eat this disgusting mess." Percival dismissed the food with a wave of his hand.

"You ask sandwich. I make sandwich."

"Hop Sing," Ben said, standing up, "please. Just take the sandwiches away and bring us some of those almond wafers you made. Please."

Hop Sing picked up the plate of sandwiches. "I save for Joe. He eat when he come home." Hop Sing glared at the thin young man with the surly look on his face. And muttering under his breath, Hop Sing went into the kitchen, returning in a minute with a plate of wafers which he let clatter on the tray to register his displeasure.

"Shall I pour, Daddy?" Percival asked. Ben said nothing and so Percy poured three cups of tea, pouring a slip of cream into the glossy dark brew and putting two loaves of sugar in his own. Ben noted that Percival liked his tea sweet. Ben handed a cup to Montague who thanked him graciously.

"Please, Montague," Ben said, "continue."

"Well, the boy was born early and although Lady Chadwick had Lord Chadwick convinced that Percival was his, the conviction didn't last long and soon, Lady Chadwick confessed. I must say that Lord Chadwick was a gentleman. In order to avoid scandal, he accepted Percy as his own but he never really forgave his wife and I am sorry to say that their marriage was unhappy. Lord Chadwick began gambling in earnest. The lands received great revenue so there wasn't yet a financial problem and with Sir Percival sent away to school, well, the house was in peace. Both Lord and Lady Chadwick had their own amusements and I kept track of the books but trouble started when Percival was near the end of his schooling and began to…"

"You may as well say it, Montague," Percy piped up. "I began to gamble, drink and whore. I must confess that I liked the gambling and drinking much better than the whoring but it is a thing that a proper Victorian scion must pursue. Lord Chadwick called me home from my school and severely reprimanded me and had the bad taste to actually put me on an allowance. An allowance! But I suppose that you'll insist on the same thing," Percival uttered with dismay, "so I suppose I had best get used to it."

"My son's work for their money," Ben said. "They work around the ranch and draw a paycheck. Money isn't given just because they happen to be born as one of my sons."

"Oh, my," Percy said. "I hadn't realized that you were so backward. What is the point of being born into a wealthy family if one cannot enjoy the happy accidents of fate?"

Montague sighed deeply and sipped his tea. "Things went along manageably for a few years but then when Sir Percy was 22, Lord Chadwick died. He was smoking in the den, sipping his brandy-it was my night off-and when I returned the next morning, he was dead-slumped over in his chair. The doctor said that his heart had failed him."

"I didn't know the circumstances of his death. I'm sorry." Ben was truly sorry for he could see how Montague was still moved by the loss of Lord Chadwick.

"Well, I devoted myself to Lady Chadwick and then she and I came to America explicitly to visit you. She was determined to marry you and then bring her son over here and to eventually tell you about him. But, as you know, things did not work out."

"Things are not that tragic! Have a wafer, Montague," Percival said. "It'll cheer you up. Very crisp and mildly sweet with just the right balance of butter and almond. I'm surprised the heathen Chinee could make something so delicate."

"Thank you, but no, sir," Montague answered. "Anyway, it wasn't long after we arrived back in England that Lady Chadwick was diagnosed with a growth….well, it was a female condition and her death was slow and drawn-out. Very sad. But before she died, she told Sir Percival who his father really was and she also wrote this." Montague reached into the inside of his jacket and pulled an envelope from the pocket. "I swore to her that I would bring both Sir Percival and this letter to you."

Ben took the letter from Montague but didn't yet open it.

Montague stood up. "And now, sir, I take my leave."

"Surely, you'll stay here, at least for tonight," Ben said.

"Thank you, Mr. Cartwright, but I will stay in town, I hired a rig to bring Sir Percival here and his trunks are in the back. I will bring them in and then go back to Virginia City. I must catch the stage to go to New Orleans to return to England. Sir Percival was…well, the money…"

"Oh, say it, Montague," Percy said. "I was a profligate. Money ran between my fingers like water and I spent almost all the money left to the family and owed powerful debts. Therefore, you can understand, Daddy, why I came here-to get away from those who, like Shylock, wanted their pound of flesh and as you can see, I am of slight stature. There isn't much of me to go around. And I was so delighted when Mother told me that you were wealthy. Wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. I practically licked my lips in anticipation."

Ben said nothing but merely turned to Montague who had an expression of sympathy for Ben. "I must sell the estate and if there is any money left, I will send it to Sir Percival."

"But first" Ben said, "take fifty percent as your commission and another twenty-five percent for good and faithful service."

"Now just a moment!" Percival stood up. "That money is mine and I have it coming to me. Montague, you will send all of it, all of it, I tell you, to me!"

"You," Ben roared and Percy backed away a step, "did nothing to earn it nor do you deserve it. You gambled so much of it away according to what you said yourself, that losing this shall be as nothing." Ben turned to Montague. "Come along. I'll help you unload the trunks."

When they had stepped outside, Montague took Ben's arm and turned toward him. "I must warn you, sir, and I hope that you do not take offense, but be wary. Sir Percival is a viper. He is malicious, treacherous and ungrateful. Do not take him to your bosom."

And Percival muttered under his breath as Ben walked out with Montague. "You shall be in such a state when I am through with you that you will rue that you were alive to meet this day. But then, I will be the only son you will have left, the only one to share your grief at the loss of your other sons. Poor, poor, Daddy."


	13. Chapter 13

**THIRTEEN**

"So that was it?" Adam said quietly.

"Basically, yes." Ben opened his vest and reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out Linda Chadwick's letter she had written to him. She handed it to Adam who pulled it from its envelope and unfolded it.

"Read it out loud, Adam," Hoss asked.

"Just not too loud," Joe said. "I don't want everyone to hear our business-at least not yet." Joe looked around to see if anyone could hear but there was so much noise and the piano player was starting to jangle out some tunes that it appeared that no one was within hearing distance.

Ben was about to say something to Joe, say that since Percy was his brother-their brother, what did it matter, but his energy and resolve failed him and he sank into the chair.

"Benjamin,

I will be dead by the time you receive this-I have perhaps a month of my unhappy life left so I write to inform you that you and I have a son, Percival Benjamin Lawson Chadwick.

I had hoped that you and I could marry and then you would know your son but you destroyed that last hope. I set your son upon your beloved Ponderosa, for your son, he is. He may not resemble your other progeny but I often see you in his dark eyes.

My husband, Milburn knew-I had foolishly but idealistically confessed-and he used that knowledge over my head like the sword of Damocles; I never knew when or if it would fall and destroy me. I am going to tell Percival who his true father is after I entrust this last letter to Montague, faithful Montague. My loyal assistant, true friend and my last love.

Are you shocked, Ben, that I found love in such an unlikely place when I had such grand aspirations as to be the wife of first you, and then a Lord? Don't be. Montague brought me the only happiness I ever experienced. It is a shame that it occurred only after the passing of Lord Chadwick…so many years wasted.

Percival is your problem now as he is your son. Rest assured of that. But you will find him much like me. I only hope that you deal with him more kindly.

Linda"

Adam sighed deeply and refolded the letter. He handed it back to his father. "I suppose that's it, then?"

"Ain't that what they call a death-bed confession?" Hoss asked.

"Yes, of a type," Ben said. "It would hold up in court if I challenged it."

"Not if the letter conveniently disappeared," Joe said, tracing the water rings on the table with his index finger.

"That's enough from you, Joe." Ben stood up and Hoss drained his mug before he stood up with his two brothers.

"So, how old is…Percy?" Adam asked.

Joe giggled at their new brother's name. "Percy Cartwright. You ever heard anything so sissy-sounding?'

Adam crossed his arms and smiled at Joe. "No, Francis. I don't think I have." And Hoss guffawed and even Ben smiled.

"Percy is a little more than a year older than Joe. The dates work out. Trust me, my math isn't that bad and I did calculate." Adam put his arms around his father's shoulder and they all walked out to the buckboard.

After the initial awkwardness of introductions, between Hoss, Adam and Percy, Hop Sing served dinner but Adam and Hoss were quick to pick up on the animosity between Hop Sing and Percy who sat at table at Joe's right and Adam's left. Percival had dressed for dinner and although he hadn't been particularly warm to his two new brothers, deigning to smile and give each a cursory nod, he had refrained from sarcasm up to that point. But Joe and Percy barely spoke even though they had known each other for a longer time.

"I do say," Percy said, "I am amazed at the size alone of you two newly-revealed siblings. You, Hoss, must be corn-fed the way hogs are. Your mother's milk must have been packed with pure cream."

Hoss shifted uncomfortably. Percy, for a reason other than the fact that he had shown up so suddenly, made him anxious and Hoss couldn't figure out why.

In a low, emotionless voice, Adam informed Percy that Hoss' mother had died shortly after he was born.

"Oh, of course," Percy said and sat back as if annoyed with himself. "We all have that in common, don't we? All motherless. Poor, motherless boys. But our father is the same. How have you managed to outlive all of our mothers, Daddy?"

Ben shot Percy a glance that basically told Percy that he was treading on dangerous ground, not so much with him but with Joe, Hoss and Adam.

Adam decided to change the subject. "I think that tomorrow afternoon, I'll ride into town and see Mr. and Mrs. Jeffers. I'll drive the buckboard in case they decide to move in tomorrow so I can take their luggage over. But I was thinking that the place must need a good cleaning and the grounds, well, the bushes and such have probably overgrown everything and with Jeffers being blind…"

"Oh," Percy interrupted, "blind? How fascinating. I have always been intrigued with the blind. In one school, well, there was a student who was practically blind-wore eyeglasses this thick!" Percy placed his thumb and forefinger a good inch apart to indicate the width of the boy's glasses. "Well, we hid his eyeglasses one day and we laughed and laughed as he fell about the room trying to find those spectacles. We would put obstacles in his way just to watch him tumble!"

Adam, Joe and Hoss looked at one another as Percy laughed uproariously at the memory of the practically blind student stumbling around.

"Well, see iffen you think this is so funny," Hoss answered with disdain. "He was blinded when his musket blew up in his face durin' the war. That's why they decided to move out here, to get away from the fightin'."

"By his accent," Ben said, ignoring Percy who was recovering from his bout of amusement, "I assume he fought for the South."

"He did," Joe said. "I asked him why they decided to come to Virginia City and he told me why. He's really a nice guy. His wife didn't say much but she sure is pretty."

Percy laughed and the other Cartwrights turned to look at him.

"What's so damn funny?" Adam asked. Percy gave him an odd feeling as if there was an evil presence among them. It was difficult for him to even accept Percy as a guest in their house so much as an actual blood relation. Percy made his blood run cold and the small hairs on the nape of his neck stand out like the hackles on a dog.

"Don't you think it's grandly funny? What a wonderful sense of humor God has; to give a man a beautiful wife and then blind him. I think it's such wonderful irony! Like some morality tale or Greek drama." And Percy's trilling laugh rang out across the otherwise somber table.

"Most people would find that sad," Adam added. Hoss, Joe and Ben didn't move; this had come down to Adam and Percy.

"Perhaps most people would. Do you, Adam? Do you find it sad or do you find it a good opportunity?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do." Percy leaned in toward Adam and Adam's first response was to lean back, to pull away from Percy, but he stopped himself; Adam wasn't going to give ground to Percy-not a centimeter. "You were on the stage with her, weren't you? That's what I heard. Is his wife lush? Is she arousing? Did you find yourself wanting her? Did the two of you exchange glances while her poor, blind husband sat there not seeing that you and she longed for each other?" Percy said with mock drama.

"Would it excite you to hear that?" Adam asked. He knew what Percy was doing; Percy had caught something, some shift in Adam's body, some expression that quickly came to his face and then vanished, something that alerted Percy's suspicions that Adam found Mrs. Jeffers attractive and Adam was determined not to be caught. Percy was a keen observer and Adam knew that he was going to have to be vigilant.

Percy laughed, relaxed and sat back. "Actually, it would, but not for the reasons you think. Beautiful women, beautiful men-they're all the same to me. Beauty should be appreciated in all forms, don't you think, Adam? I adhere to the Greek classical ideals of beauty. Now, you, oldest brother, you are built like a Greek god. Adonis, I would call you, instead of Adam. Adonis was ripped apart by a boar. Have you ever been ripped by a boar, Adam? Been rammed with a long, thick tusk? More enjoyable than you might think. But then, Adam, there's all that hair you have that some people may find unattractive. The Greek ideal is hairless except, well, where it counts. I think though that it may be pleasurable to feel all that hair-such a reminder of masculinity, of your dominance, of your ability to overpower and overwhelm. I myself find It most attractive. Do women like feeling that thick mat of hair or does it repulse them? Make them feel as if some bear is mounting and slavering over them?"

Adam's face never changed nor did he move. He was trying to read Percy, to understand him and find his weakness but couldn't quite get a grip on him. "Better a hot-blooded bear than a cold-blooded, slithering reptile, I would think." Adam turned back to his food.

Percy just laughed, delighted at Adam's response. He lifted his wine glass to his oldest brother. "Touché. Parry and thrust. Or as Hamlet said, 'A hit, a very palpable hit.' "

"It was Osric who said it," Adam corrected, reaching for his own wine glass.

Percy gave a small laugh. "My, you are superior, are you not? Superior in every way. I suppose that I had better drop to my knees in front of you in order to please you-just to show my obeisance and submission, of course." Percy raised his eyebrows with a look of lasciviousness.

"You flatter me," Adam said. "Please don't-it only makes me more suspicious of your motives."

"It's not flattery if it's true, brother. Apparently your mother's stock was sturdier than the elegance and delicacy of my mother's lineage." Percy gave a deep sigh. "Nevertheless, everyone needs to appreciate the comical aspects of this sad life we all lead. And I would so love to watch two beautiful people enjoy each other-in every way." Percy gave a slight smile; he realized that Adam had read him; saw that the one of Percy's goals was to disrupt the family order and to make everyone uncomfortable. In the homey language of the west, Percy thought, he would be referred to as "The fly in the ointment." Adam was going to be a formidable opponent; his mother's warning to beware of Adam was obviously true, Percy realized. And he needed to be wary-Adam was dangerous to his plans.

And as Ben desperately tried to turn the conversation back to how they were going to make the rental property habitable before their lodgers moved in, Percy surreptitiously watched Adam and observed the other members of his new family now that they were all together. Percy noticed that Joe had moved slightly away from him. It had worked; he had made Joe uncomfortable to have him in close proximity. And Hoss avoided looking at him all together. Percy smiled to himself. And not once had Ben reprimanded him or told him to be quiet but instead, watched helplessly while he and Adam had sparred. Percy considered that a small victory. And as the family decided that they would go out early to rip out weeds from the yard and walk of the rental house and see what repairs, if any, needed to be made, Percy smiled to himself; so far, he had not been given any chores and hoped it would remain so. Nevertheless, as the family talked, Percy remembered how, sitting by his mother's bedside as she lay dying, she had given him instructions and suggestions on how to bring down the Cartwrights; she had been correct in all her appraisals-particularly about Ben and most of all, about Adam.


	14. Chapter 14

**FOURTEEN**

Percy had been called to his mother's side by Montague. Actually, dragged to his dying mother's side. Percy disliked death and all its trappings and to see his mother, so weak and thin was disgusting to him. So Montague had grabbed him by the back of his jacket, literally lifted him off the ground and shook him the way a terrier shakes a rat.

"You shall go see her, Master Percy. She has asked for you!" Montague said as he pulled the young man up the stairs and into Lady Chadwick's room where a chair had already been placed by the side of the bed. He practically threw Percy into the chair and it rocked dangerously on its back legs. Montague bowed to Lady Chadwick. "Your son is here, m'Lady," he said and left the room.

"I take it that you didn't want to visit," Lady Chadwick said in a weak voice.

"It's not that at all, Mother," Percy replied. "I just had something else pressing but Montague insisted that it be now. He is forceful." Percy looked about the room. He had already been selling off his mother's jewelry but she insisted that she wear her diamond and emerald necklace as she lay in bed dying and that she be buried wearing it but when Percy turned back to look at his mother, it was only to judge how much longer until he could remove the valuable necklace from around her neck and sell it.

"I told you about your real father and what he did to me-to us."

"I do think things turned out much better, mother, the way they did. I can't really see myself out in the wild west of that barbarian country. Just the thought makes me shudder."

"You know you have to go to the Ponderosa after I die. I have written a letter and entrusted it to Montague and now, I entrust to you the matter of revenge on Ben Cartwright. He is wealthy-incredibly wealthy having holdings in cattle, silver mining and lumber, is worth hundreds of thousands. His land holdings cover a third of the territory and I believe he is still buying more. You must be my avenger and do as I ask and then all of it will be yours." She fell back and closed her eyes. Percy leaned in to see if she had died.

"Mother?" He didn't want to touch her; her skin was yellow and waxy. The doctor had said that it was her liver-it was failing and would probably cause her death before the disease from which she suffered, a growth that was eating her insides, would. She opened her eyes and Percy sat back. "What is it that you want me to do?"

"You must destroy him by annihilating all that he loves. You see, Ben Cartwright loves his sons more than all the world-more than his farm. You must get to him by getting at them. Whether you cause his sons to leave forever, to die or to be locked away, I don't care-you can only do what circumstances allow but do it, you will. Especially Adam, the eldest. It's he I blame the most. But be careful-he is the most dangerous. Even at a young age, as early as ten years, he saw through me, understood my motives and that is because he is the same as I am. You see, Percy, Adam is as clever and astute and as conniving as you, as I, but he isn't as cold. But he can be cruel; I've seen it in him. Be very careful but look for his weakness; he must have one, some vulnerable spot with which you can stab him to the heart." She closed her eyes again, tightened them as a sharp pain shot through her. Then she recovered. "I hate him most of all. Adam was instrumental in discovering my plan and how I was going to coerce Ben into a marriage with me. And then, my son, you would have joined us and I would have seen that you lacked for nothing. Nothing. Swear to me that you will destroy all the Cartwrights but particularly Ben and Adam. Hoss and Joe-they will be simple to bring down as they lack the inherent cruelty of Adam, particularly Hoss. You are so clever that it will be easy-you will find them no challenge. Hoss is a country bumpkin, and Joe, he has a temper that flares at the slightest insult. It will not be difficult to unhinge him and prod him into a violent act. Now promise me. Swear to me that you will do as I ask."

"I will if you give me the necklace that you're wearing." Linda Chadwick put one small, thin hand to her throat and touched the necklace and looked at her son. "I know that you want to be buried in it, but really, Mother, what a waste. It is worth so much and I do need the money. I have a debt to pay off or I may not live to do your bidding."

Linda looked at her son; she really did despise him. He was nothing like his father and Linda thought of how differently Percy may have turned out had he only had the guiding hand of Ben Cartwright instead of the disdain and loathing of Lord Chadwick. Ah well, it was too late for that.

"Take it, you scavenger." Linda closed her eyes as she felt Percy pull her necklace around to get at the clasp

"Now, Mother," Percy said as he unclasped the necklace and pulled it off from around her neck, "better that I take it now instead of hiring someone to unearth your body from its sacred resting place and steal it off your rotting corpse." She said nothing and Percy left his mother's room, dropping the diamond and emerald necklace into his pocket. He considered paying off the debt he did owe-he had not lied-but he convinced himself that he could make more money by using the necklace as his gambling stake. And humming to himself, he tossed back his head as was his habit, to throw the long, lanky hair off his face. Perhaps he would go get his hair cut and his nails buffed; if he was going to be using his hands, he wanted to look nice when he gathered up his winnings.

And so, here at the Ponderosa, Percy looked around the table at his relatives and smiled to himself. He hated them with a depth of emotion that he could barely control but Percy knew not to let his emotions control him. And when Hop Sing came out to clear the table for dessert, Percy gave him an indulgent smile but Hop Sing glowered. Percy remarked what a good "boy" Hop Sing was and Ben responded in a patient voice that Percy needed to show proper respect for Hop Sing, that he was a trusted friend as well as a great help and that Hop Sing had been their physician in emergencies and a confidante when needed. He also had helped raised mainly Hoss and Joe and Percy remarked that that explained quite a bit about the crudeness of his other two brothers since they were raised by a heathen "Chinee."

"Now what d'you mean by that?" Hoss asked, his brow furrowed. Hoss knew that it was an insult and he didn't like Hop Sing being called a "Chinee."

"Yeah," Joe said. " 'that explains quite a bit.' What is that supposed to mean? You saying that Hoss and I don't have any manners?"

"What he means," Adam interrupted," is to make you angry. Besides, we are what we are and there's no sense in trying to be what we're not." Adam looked pointedly at Percy.

"What would you say that I am, brother Adam, other than your brother, your open admirer and your father's bastard son?" But before Adam could answer, Hop Sing came in with the peach pie he had baked for dessert.

"Just for you, Mistah Hoss, I make peach pie. Mrs. Birch, she trade bushel of peaches for two hens."

"Now, Hop Sing," Hoss said, "don't go tradin' away all our fryin' hens. Much as I love peach pie, I got a hankerin' for some fried chicken too!"

Adam chuckled and Joe and Ben laughed but Percy sat stone-faced. "Have you nothing else to eat for dessert besides this distasteful doughy pile of lard and flour and over-ripe fruit? The main course was disgusting enough."

"What he say? What he say about my cooking?" Hop Sing was enraged.

"Hop Sing," Ben said, "please, it's nothing."

"What I said," Percy explained as he pushed his chair back from the table and stood up, "is that all this is slop only fit for hogs-like Hoss. Not for anyone who actually tastes their food before they swallow the whole un-masticated mess."

Hoss stood up so quickly that his chair toppled over. "Hog? I'll show you what it's like to wallow in a pig sty." And Hoss began to rush around the table but Adam stood up and Ben did as well.

"Hoss, Hoss," Adam said stepping in between him and Percy. "Settle down." Hoss looked at Adam, his chest heaving with anger. He had disliked Percy from the moment he met the younger man and he wasn't going to suffer insults at his hands; it would have eased his bruised feeling considerably to have tossed Percy's body into the pig sty and see him flounder in the muck. It was true that Adam often insulted him but Hoss knew that was different; Adam loved him and his comments were always a form of that affection that neither brother knew any other way to express but Percy, he was sincere in his open disgust for Hoss and his manners.

So Hoss stood with Adam in front of him and stabbed his finger in the air at Percy. "I'll teach you some manners," Hoss said. "You just wait and I'll give you a proper education 'cause of the way you talk to people out here. And if you ever call me a hog again, I'll bury your face in the mud and muck in the pig sty and let the boar have his way with you as you're face down, squealin'."

Despite the seriousness of Hoss' anger, Adam and Joe grinned at one another at the humor in Hoss' threat. Later Joe had told Adam that he would have paid good money to have seen that scene in the pigpen with the boar on top of Percy.

"Well," Percy said, his nose in the air as he sniffed. "The sty has to smell better than being in here with the aroma from that revolting food and the stench of your unwashed body."

Ben had come around by then and he and Adam both held back a struggling Hoss who, if he cared to toss Adam or his father aside, could have reached out and throttled Percy and enjoyed doing it.

"Get the hell out of here," Adam shouted to Percy, "before we lose our grip on him!"

And Percy sauntered up the stairs to his room, a small smile playing about his lips. His mother would be so proud of him.


	15. Chapter 15

**FIFTEEN**

It took quite a bit to calm down Hoss. Ben told Hoss that he would talk to Percy but then Hop Sing joined in and argued that Percy should go, that Ben should toss him out and Joe stated as to how he had already spent a whole week and a half with his "brother" and it was a week and a half too many. Adam sat and imagined Percy standing in the upstairs hall, listening and rejoicing in the turmoil he had caused. Finally, after a piece of peach pie with thick cream, Hoss and Joe went upstairs to bed and Adam, who had passed on the pie, told his father that he needed to speak to him and that it couldn't wait until morning.

"I know, I know," Ben said, obviously tired. "Percy is, well…"

"Can we go out on the porch?" Adam asked.

"Out on the porch? Why?" Ben was too tired to think. He wanted to postpone the discussion about Percy until tomorrow.

"I'd just feel more comfortable that way."

"Can't this wait, Adam? I had planned to talk to you about the situation with Percy tomorrow and especially about my will."

"Your will? You plan to change it to include Percy?"

"He is my son, Adam, and your brother and he should have his share of the Ponderosa."

"Did Percy suggest it?"

Ben looked down. He wanted to think the best of Percy but Adam had a way of illuminating the negative in Percy. "Actually, he did."

"Let me guess," Adam said. "Was it the first or second day? Was it after he calculated the worth of the paintings and the silver or before?"

"What does it matter, Adam. I'm his father and I want to make up to him for the fact that he never knew me."

"That's his mother's fault, not yours."

"Part of it's mine. I never did the right thing by his mother. Never. Not the first time or the second. I just feel as if I have so much to make up for."

"Pa, she tried to destroy you, destroy us all and Percy is her son. He hasn't done one goddamn thing to deserve any part of the Ponderosa or our holdings except have a mother who was in heat at the right time." Adam heard a noise at the top of the stairs and looked up. He could have sworn that he saw a shadow as if someone had been standing there, listening. 'You're hearing things, boy,' he thought to himself.' Percy had put his nerves on edge. "Let's go on the porch." Ben slowly rose from his chair. Adam took his arm; it struck him that his once vigorous father was becoming a broken, tired old man and he seemed to have aged rapidly since Percy had arrived. Adam led his father out onto the porch where they sat down in the chairs that looked out on the yard. All was quiet except for the normal sounds of wolves occasionally baying at the full moon and the crickets chirping. There was no noise from the bunk house off in the distance even though the lights still burned.

"Must be a poker game going on in the bunkhouse," Adam said. "They lose their wages before they get them." There were three hands who had stayed behind to help with the general running of the ranch while the others had gone on the cattle drive.

"Probably. Percy played with the hands last week and lost quite a bit of money and made at least three enemies. He accused Thad of cheating and it took the other two to keep Thad from ripping Percy apart."

"They should have let him at 'im, let Thad shove Percy's face up his own ass."

"The way Hoss would have? You stopped him."

"I know but I think I'll be less inclined to step in again. Now what's this about the will?"

"Well, Percy asked me if I was going to include him in the will. He actually wanted his share of the property now, wanted me to divide everything, all the holdings four ways saying that he deserved it."

"Like the 'Prodigal Son,' I'm sure that he wanted to sell his shares immediately and take off with the money. If I were sure that's what he'd do and that he'd never return, I'd tell you to give it to him but he'd turn up again, I'm sure and you would 'fall on his neck and kiss him.' "

"And are you being as the older son and thinking of merit and reward?"

Adam gave a small laugh. "I suppose I am. It just seems to me that you're trying to assuage the guilt you feel about Percy by giving him money."

"Yes, I suppose I am," Ben said quietly. "It's funny how one moment of weakness comes back again, how an action that happened years ago comes back to haunt you." They sat silently for a moment. "I need to make an appointment with Hiram and I'd like you to go with me. Would you?"

"Yes, but I think you should wait."

"Wait? Why?"

"You shouldn't rush to change your will. I know about guilt, Pa, how it changes the way you think of things, yourself in particular, but don't let Percy manipulate you with it; he must know how you feel about family and the Ponderosa. Don't you think Linda Lawrence told him?"

Ben looked at Adam and a wave of gratitude washed over him; he realized how much he needed Adam, how Adam's cool head at times like this was valued. "All right, Adam. I'll wait. I suppose a few weeks or so won't make much of a difference. I've always seen you boys' mothers in you. There's not much of me really-all of you are so much like your mothers and I suppose that Percy is more like his mother than like me."

"We have your ideas; you influenced us as we were raised-you and Hop Sing. I've tried to stay true to what you've wanted us to be and so have Hoss and Joe."

"And that's where I've failed Percy. I should have married Linda Lawrence and raised my son along with the rest of you. Think how different he would be?"

"Or how different we would be if the Countess had had a hand in raising us." Adam added. "And what about Joe? He may not have ever existed-or turned out to be a younger Percy. You can't go on thinking about the past and how things could've been different; we can't go back and change what's already happened…although I wish we could." Ben began to rise from the chair; he longed to go to bed but Adam put out his hand and held his father's arm. "I need to tell you about something else. About Mrs. Jeffers…and me."

"Oh?' Ben sat back down, Adam's face had taken on an odd look and Adam glanced out into the distance, avoiding his father's eyes.

"I never told you this-I suppose I was too ashamed or too upset or felt too guilty. Probably a combination of all of it." Adam took a deep breath. "When I was in Boston, I met Mrs. Jeffers. Actually, she was Miss Piper Naismith, one of my professor's daughter and…we married."

"What?" Ben couldn't believe what he was hearing but then it dawned on him. He remembered when Adam had quit his apprenticeship with the architectural firm and returned home from Boston. He knew that something had devastated Adam but Ben had suspected that perhaps it had to do with the firm. Perhaps one of the partners had told him he had no talent-that was what Ben had suspected since Adam never spoke again of taking up architecture and setting up in Virginia City as he had planned. Adam had been so melancholy for months afterwards that Ben was worried. Hop Sing fed him teas and herbs and purges, and Ben had tried to convince Adam to see the doctor but Adam had refused and just went on day after day until eventually he seemed to become better but Adam still had episodes of morbid humor.

"Her father had the marriage annulled; she was only seventeen. He took her away from me and had our marriage wiped out, legally obliterated. I asked questions, searched and finally found where Piper had been staying but she was gone and her aunt wouldn't tell me where. I never saw her again until she stepped onto the stage with her husband. All my feelings for her came back and I think her husband suspects that we knew each other. Hoss does, that I know."

Ben sighed deeply and reached out to pat Adam's arm; he felt helpless as to how to comfort his son. "Adam, I'm so sorry. It must be hard for you. How do you feel about having her so close?"

"I don't really know. Part of me is glad that she's near again. I've thought about her so much over the years, wondered how she was, if she was happy, if she married and had children. It's a comfort to know that she's here and that maybe, just maybe, we can help each other. She's married to a blind man now and I don't think that she's happy. She hasn't said that she isn't happy but-maybe I'm just imagining it because deep down, I don't want her to be; it gives me some hope that she may leave him for me but knowing Piper, I don't think she would no matter how unhappy she may be. And then, part of me is afraid with her being so close. I don't really trust myself anymore-at least when it comes to her. Maybe I'm just remembering my first real love and it has nothing to do with reality. I'm not the same person I was twelve years ago and neither is she."

"What are you going to do?" Ben asked.

"I don't know, Pa. I just don't know. For once, I have no idea what to do."

"I don't know what to tell you that will help how you're fighting with yourself, with your inner conflict. But think long and hard before you do anything that you don't think you should-and have a talk with Piper. A serious talk. If you and she were close enough once to marry then you should be able to discuss the situation." And the two men remained sitting on the porch keeping each other company as two animals silently do, taking comfort in the proximity and warmth of one another. And inside the house, Percy stepped down off the chair on which he had stood so that could overhear through the high window Adam and his father talk. He had believed that they would discuss him and how to be rid of him but this was even better. And Percy smiled to himself; he had found Adam's weakness-Mrs. Nash Jeffers.


	16. Chapter 16

**SIXTEEN**

Ben, Adam and Joe came down the stairs to see Percy sitting in Ben's red leather chair. The table had been moved so that he could put up his booted feet while he sipped tea, an empty plate on the table.

"Well," Ben said when they reached the bottom of the stairs, "you're up early this morning."

Joe, standing behind his father, cleared his throat. Ben turned to see both Adam and Hoss looking at him expectantly. He knew what they wanted.

"And take your feet off the table," Ben bellowed. Joe and Adam looked at each other with amusement and satisfaction.

But instead of reacting sheepishly as Joe did when he was caught lolling on the settee, his feet on the table, Percy, with mock respect, stood up, ramrod straight, and clicked his heels together. "Sir, yes, sir," Percy said. Then he sat back down, picked up his teacup and saucer and continued to sip his tea.

Adam and Joe walked over to the dining room table and stared at the emptiness of its surface. Then they looked up as Hoss came heavily down the stairs, glowering as he saw Percy's smug face.

"Good morning, brother," Percy said and Hoss grunted in response. Percy smiled; he was delighted. To Percy, Hoss was a simpleton, having a basic good nature that responded instinctively to praise and admonishment like a dumb animal. But it wasn't like that; not being manipulative himself, Hoss couldn't recognize it in others and that made him the perfect stooge, easily exploited.

"Hey," Hoss said, still in a foul mood, "where's breakfast? Hop Sing?" Hoss headed into the kitchen.

"He's not there," Percy trilled.

"Well, where is he?" Adam asked and Hoss stopped in his tracks to hear.

"I really don't know. He made me this pot of tea and some toast and jam and then with a ridiculous hat on his head, something atrocious that resembled a shrunken stovepipe hat, left with two bags, one tucked under each arm. He muttered something about going back to China-Hop Sing quit-things like that. I fear, Father, that he may have stolen one of your horses as I heard him ride away. Don't they hang horse thieves out here? You could hang him by his own queue. Wouldn't that be amusing?" Percy leaned forward and poured more tea from the squat, china teapot.

"What do you mean he quit?" Ben asked angrily.

"He quit," Percy said. "I assume that the word means the same here as it does it England. It means to stop doing the thing that one was doing. To leave one's place of employment for all time. To quit. He walked out, as I said, muttering. I don't think it was anything I said that ran him off as I barely spoke to him."

"I just bet it weren't," Hoss grumbled. "I'm bettin' you run him off and iffen you did…"

Ben headed angrily toward Percy but Adam grabbed his arm. "Pa, Pa, I'll find Hop Sing and talk to him when I go to town this afternoon to see the Jeffers. I'll find out what the problem is, okay."

"I can tell you what the problem is," Joe spat out.

"All right," Ben said. "We've been on our own before when Hop Sing's gone to visit his relatives so we'll just do what we've done before. Who's up for fixing breakfast?"

"I'll do it," Hoss volunteered. "Eggs and bacon okay with everyone?'

They all nodded in agreement.

"Don't forget to wash your hands, Hoss," Percy called out. "I'm sure you used the chamber pot before you came down-I smelled the most atrocious warm, sour smell of urine just before you descended the royal staircase. The odor followed you and it was no odor of sanctity."

Hoss began to react but Ben put his hand on Hoss' shoulder. "Just go start breakfast. I'll start the coffee." And Hoss and Ben walked into the kitchen.

Joe opened the drawers of the sideboard and took out napkins and silverware to set the table while Adam sauntered over to Percy, his hands in his back pockets.

"And why are you up so early today? According to what I've heard, this past week you've been sleeping 'til noon or longer."

"Oh, I'm very excited about today," Percy said, "and about getting to know my oldest brother better. I do think that you and I could become more than mere brothers-we could actually become friends."

"Somehow I doubt that," Adam said drolly.

"Why you have stabbed me through the heart," Percy cried, dramatically placing one hand on his chest.

"If only…" Joe mumbled as he noisily set the table, the silverware clattering.

Percy glanced back at Joe and then continued. "I was hoping that I could go to town with you, Adam. You see, I have been stuck out here on this farm for so long that I do believe that my health is suffering and I also need to learn the way to town and back. Can't very well drop breadcrumbs to mark my path now, can I? I suppose I could drop silver coins though." Percy shifted uncomfortably in his chair and placed the cup and saucer on the table.

"Anything wrong?" Adam asked. Percy had an odd look on his face.

"No, just a little dyspepsia, I'm sure, from all the Chinese slop I've been eating. A bit more tea ought to settle it." Percy poured the rest of the tea in his cup and added a slip of cream and then, began to sip the now cool liquid.

"I'm afraid," Adam continued, "that I can't take you to town this afternoon. You're going to be needed at the rental property to help with any repairs and to clean up the place."

"My hands are far too tender for any hard work. Have some mercy on me. I do deal cards well with them though-the finger pads are so sensitive."

"Then wear gloves," Adam stated. He stared again at Percy; something was definitely wrong. Percy's face went pale and he suddenly stood up.

"That damnable heathen; he's poisoned me!" Percy ran to the front door, threw it open, and ran out. Joe rushed over to stare out the door with Adam. Percy barely made it to the dirt before he dropped to his knees and retched once and then spewed tea and toast onto the dirt. He heaved again and again until nothing but bile was left and then he rolled backwards to lay on the boards of the walkway into the house.

"Adam," Joe said, "you don't think Hop Sing really poisoned him, do you?"

"Nah. Maybe just a little purgative, you know, a little bit of who knows what steeped into the tea. But who can say. Let's go have breakfast." Adam partially shut the door, leaving Percy outside and putting his arm around his brother's shoulder, they went to their places at the table. Ben came out with the coffee pot, not even bothering to transfer the contents to the carafe, and sat it on a pad he had brought from the kitchen.

"Where's Percy?" he asked as he sat down.

"Outside," Adam said matter-of-factly pouring himself some coffee, "getting some fresh air. Looks as if his breakfast didn't agree with him."

"What?" Ben said.

"See for yourself, Pa," Joe said in all innocence. "Just watch where you step." And Ben, looking at Adam and Joe who seemed unconcerned, went out onto the porch where Adam and Joe could hear Percy again accuse Hop Sing of trying to poison him and Ben doing his best to defend the absent cook. Joe giggled, barely able to control himself, and Adam suppressed an evil grin as he sipped his coffee.

The Cartwrights rode in two buckboards to the property on which the Jefferses were going to move. Percy reclined alongside Adam while Joe sat in the back with the tool chest and shingles and boards. He told Adam that he preferred the bed of the buckboard rather than sitting by Percy, especially if Percy hadn't yet vomited all of his breakfast. Hoss and Ben followed in another buckboard with supplies of food, potatoes, beets, and onions from their own pantry and root cellar. Hoss had given up the last three cans of peaches to the married couple, an act of selfless generosity, Adam had called it. They also had five buckets of white paint.

"Pa," Hoss said as the buckboard rocked and dipped along the uneven road, "how long you think Percy's gonna stay?"

"I don't really know. After all, he's a member of the family and can stay as long as he likes."

"You know he run off Hop Sing."

"Now, Hoss," Ben said with a heavy sigh, "until Adam talks to Hop Sing, we don't really know why he left."

"Yeah, we do and to be honest, Pa, I'm thinkin' that I might pack up and take off for a while too. I can't live with him."

"Hoss, you've only spent one day with him."

"One day too many, Pa. Now old Adam, he don't let Percy get to him-at least not yet-but I ain't got the same mind that Adam does. When Percy sets in on me, Pa, I feel like that bear did last year when Hanson's dogs got hold of 'im. I just want to swing out and swipe him away like that bear did them dogs, but no matter what, them dogs just came back at 'im, over and over until he just couldn't handle no more and they done dragged him down and tore out his throat. Much as that bear did to us, killing our beeves and such, I felt sorry for 'im when them dogs were at 'im. And Pa, Percy's always gonna keep at me and keep at me 'til I do somethin' 'bout it. Or one of us leaves, and I'd rather it be him that up and leaves and not me but I'll go iffen I have to."

"Things will get better, Hoss. Once Percy gets used to the work around here, once he becomes a part of the Ponderosa, things will change." Hoss looked darkly at his father. "They have to, Hoss."

Father and son rode along in silence for a distance and then Hoss began again. ""Bout this Mr. and Mrs. Jeffers, it was my idea they rent the place. They was goin' on to Sacramento but I talked Mr. Jeffers into takin' this place. But now I ain't sure it was such a good idea."

"Why do you say that?" Ben tried his best not to reveal too much with his voice or face.

"Well, I got a notion from what was said on the stage and all, that Mrs. Jeffers and Adam might know each other from way back, from when they was both in Boston. Her father was one of Adam's professors. I got a bad feelin', Pa, a real bad feelin'."

"I wouldn't worry too much about it," Ben said. "You brother can take care of himself."

"I hope so, Pa. I sure hope so. We got enough trouble with that bastard…" Hoss stopped himself when he realized what he had said. "Pa, I didn't mean nothin'..."

Ben smiled. "It's okay, Hoss. Don't give it another thought."

In the buckboard ahead, Percy groaned and complained all the way because he said the rocking of the buckboard and the rough ride made his stomach lurch each time the "contraption" did.

"Get used to it," Adam said. "Besides, we're almost there and the hard work'll clear your head and settle your stomach. When you're up on the roof with Joe, nailing down those shingles, well, the cool breeze won't be blocked by the trees and it's a beautiful view. You'll enjoy being up there working."

"What? Nailing shingles? What are shingles?" Percy sat upright; this was unwelcome news to him. He had planned on malingering, thinking that he would be given some picayune chore.

These," Joe said, leaning forward and shoving a shingle in Percy's face. He had pulled a shingle from the tied stack. "They're what keeps the rain out of your tea when you're entertaining in the parlor."

"Get that damnable thing out of my face," Percy said and Joe giggled. "I am not a manual laborer."

"Well, you will be today," Adam said as a matter of fact.

"And are you going to make a real man out of me?" Percy asked Adam in a low voice as he leaned toward him. "Are you going to create me in your own image?"

Adam turned to look at him. Percy sat, smirking. "If I hurt myself, will you kiss it and make it better, big brother? Will you hold me next to you and stroke my hair to comfort me?"

Adam didn't answer, just snapped the reins on the horse's back and Percy grabbed the side of the buckboard to maintain his balance as the ride became bumpier. Joe, who had heard what Percy had said and the way he had said it, felt cold chills. He wasn't sure exactly what Percy was doing except that in some way, Percy was attempting to get at Adam, to make Adam angry and lose his equanimity. Percy had started last night with his suggestive comments.

But Adam knew. He knew that Percy was trying to make him feel unsure about himself, to make him so uncomfortable that he wouldn't want to come home where Percy was. Percy also wanted to make Adam wonder what in him had attracted Percy. Then Adam would fall apart, not be so confident about his masculinity. But all that Adam felt was revulsion toward Percy and he drove the horse even faster until he saw the house ahead of them, the grass overgrown and the boards needing a coat of paint.


	17. Chapter 17

SEVENTEEN

The five Cartwrights worked all morning and the day grew warmer. Initially, all five worked at pulling weeds from what had been the kitchen garden and what was still the flower garden. Morning-glories climbed over the fence and roses still produced buds.

"Well," Ben said, standing back and looking at the result of their work, "that's a good job well-done."

"At least by some of us," Joe said, glowering.

"Surely, you aren't referring to me?" Percy said as if he was injured.

"Actually, I am," Joe said facing Percy.

"Now, Joe," Ben said, putting his hand on Joe's shoulder. "Percy worked at clearing the garden."

"Thank you, Father, for defending me, but I'm afraid that I'm just not cut out for this type of work. Getting dirt under one's nails! Gauche! Disgusting!"

"I told you to wear gloves," Adam said, "if you didn't want to get your dainty hands dirty."

Joe smirked at Adam's comment and Percy glared at him.

Before they had left the Ponderosa, Percy complained that the roughness of the shingles would ruin his gloves. Joe giggled and Hoss had guffawed when Percy had pulled from his back pocket a pair of fawn colored lambskin dress gloves to wear while working. So Ben had told Joe to loan Percy some work clothes-they were both about the same size-and a pair of gloves. Joe had pulled an old work shirt out of his chest of drawers and a pair of folded dungarees and thrown them at Percy's chest.

"Keep them," Joe had said. He didn't want them back once they had been against Percy's skin for so long and imbued with his sweat, that is if he did enough work to break a sweat. During the time Percy had been there, albeit a short time, Joe hadn't yet seen him anything but cool and placid. Percy languidly moved about the house, exerting little effort and Joe felt that Adam was right when he referred to Percy as "slithering;" it captured the malevolent aspect of all of Percy's actions.

And so Percy wore his fancy kidskin boots and his lambskin gloves along with the dungarees and work shirt. He kept tossing his hair out of his face and Hoss had asked him if he wanted a ribbon to tie his hair back. Joe and Hoss laughed at that but Adam had said quietly to Hoss to be careful, not to intentionally provoke Percy, that Adam felt he could be dangerous.

"That little pipsqueak? Dangerous? Aw, c'mon, Adam." Hoss gave a small laugh but when he saw Adam's serious face, he stopped. "I could snap 'im in half," Hoss said.

"That's not what I mean."

"What do you mean then?"

"I just think…just be careful…okay." And then Adam picked up a pail of paint and a brush and went to paint the house while Hoss looked after him, puzzled.

Ben had Percy to climb the ladder up to the roof and to help Joe.

"Surely you don't expect me to ascend such vertiginous heights just to hand small pieces of wood to Joe? Besides, after my….after losing my breakfast, I am so enervated that I believe that even lifting a mere shingle would be too much of an effort."

"If you want," Joe said from the roof, "I'll do the handing and you can do the hammering. It's all the same to me."

Percy huffed and then sullenly climbed the ladder and as Joe asked for them, Percy handed him the slats of thin wood and Joe nailed the shingles in place. They worked silently, Joe putting out his gloved hand when he wanted another shingle. Percy moved slowly and tried Joe's patience.

"Look, Percy," Joe said, "you need to be faster-we're going to be here all day at this pace."

"Sorry, little brother, I just can't move any faster. After all, I was poisoned this morning and am still weak." Percy lay back on the roof to illustrate his fatigue.

"Get up and get busy," Joe tersely responded. He had been working hard and his shirt was soaked with sweat. Joe had rolled up the sleeves and unbuttoned a few more buttons at the neck but he was uncomfortable and working with Percy made it worse.

Percy slowly sat up. "My goodness, how your beautiful, green eyes flash when you're angry. I hear that you're quite the ladies' man. Is it true?" Percy pointedly looked at Joe's crotch and then glanced back up to Joe's face, smiling.

Joe bent over and grabbed Percy's shirt, jerking it. "Now you listen to me," he said through partially clenched teeth. "You might be able to rile Hoss with your nasty little comments but you're talking to me now so shut your goddamn mouth and start handing me shingles and be quick about it or I'll toss you off this roof and finish it myself!"

"I just love seeing you so masterful." And Percy reached up and placed his hand over Joe's gloved one and then ran it up Joe's bare arm to his elbow. Joe was taken by surprise. No man he had threatened had ever responded this way.

Joe released Percy's shirt front and stepped back. Whether Joe lost his footing or tripped over Percy's splayed leg or it was a mere accident, no one could be sure because no one was watching, but somehow, Joe toppled off the roof and fell to the ground, landing heavily on his side. Adam looked up when he heard the sound of the sickening thud and Joe cried out in pain. Ben, who had been painting, dropped his pail which spilled over, causing a pool of the thick, white liquid to form a puddle on the ground.

Hoss was the first to reach Joe. He quickly checked his younger brother and gently rolled him over onto his back. Joe rocked himself back and forth, holding onto his shoulder, gritting his teeth, and when Adam finally reached Joe, he unbuttoned Joe's shirt more and pulled it back; Joe's collarbone had split the skin and was protruding a good inch.

"Oh, hell," Adam said in a hushed voice.

Adam met his father's eye and Adam shook his head; it was a bad break. Ben kneeled and stroked Joe's hair and tried to calm him.

"We'll get you to the doctor, Joe. It's just a break, that's all. Don't move." But Ben wasn't so sure when Joe looked up at him, obviously in great pain. His breathing was labored which caused Ben to think that a rib may have shoved itself into Joe's lung.

And Adam noticed a shadow over them and looked up and Percy stood at the edge of the roof, looking down at them, a satisfied expression on his face. Adam stood up and faced Percy who loomed over them from the heights of the roof.

"Get down from there," Adam ordered. "Get your goddamn ass down here or I swear I'll climb up and throw you off."

"I'm coming," Percy said. "Don't be so impatient. Give me a chance. I don't do well with heights. And obviously, neither does Joe."

At that, Adam began to approach the ladder and Percy called out that he was coming and quickly.

Adam and Hoss pulled the mattress off one of the beds in the house and gently lifting Joe onto it, carried him to the buckboard and placed him in the back.

"You and Hoss take him home, Pa-gently. I'll go into town and get the doctor," Adam said. Ben agreed that Joe shouldn't be rattled around-it might exacerbate his injuries.

"What about me?" Percy asked and then wished he hadn't because Adam strode threateningly toward him while Ben and Hoss watched.

"Did you push him off?" Adam asked. His eyes were dark with anger.

"Of course not," Percy said. "Did he say I did?" Percy backed a few steps. He had rarely known tr fear but he was afraid of Adam. He had been prodding Adam since they met the day before but he hadn't realized how dangerous Adam could be when pushed too far.

When Percy had been a young boy, the headmaster had a mastiff and kept it behind a tall iron fence. It was a frightening dog with its oversized head, folds of skin, and slobbering lips and Percy couldn't resist tormenting it. After all, it was behind a fence. So when he was out, he would annoy the dog by running a heavy stick along the rails of the fence making a clattering sound and the dog would bark wildly and try to pull the stick, turning his head sideways to grab it with its jaws. And Percy would laugh and then he'd take the stick and jab at the dog, trying his best to poke it in the eyes. That would really be fun-to tease a blind dog.

But one day, Percy stole the cook's cat, a calico mouser. He had tempted it with a string and a feather that he pulled across the floor until it came close enough for him to grab it. Then he tied a rope around its neck and ran with it to the iron fence. After kicking the fence, and calling out to attract the dog, he tossed the cat over the fence and dangled it while the cat struggled against the suffocating noose, clawing and twisting. The dog, so filled with hate at the sight of its tormenter and seeing the wriggling calico, grabbed the cat and ripped it apart and Percy found that it thrilled him and excited him in such a manner that he went off alone in the woods to relieve his arousal. And from then on, he found that cruelty was an aphrodisiac for him and there were many a young man at the boy's school who suffered at Percy's hands. He was feared as he grew older because despite his slender build and effeminate manner, he always found a way to avenge himself and no one could ever say for sure exactly what had happened. And once he started visiting the brothels, many a young girl was beaten and then found unconscious, her chemise and pantalets still in place but sullied from Percy's emissions.

But now, he felt like the helpless, dangling cat and Adam was as threatening as the mastiff. Percy couldn't bear being the helpless victim and his hate for Adam grew as the fear of him did. Adam jabbed Percy's chest, pushing him, and it made Percy wince with pain. He put his hand over the spot which hurt as if he had been shot.

"If Joe says that you pushed him off that roof, well, I can assure you that you'll pay. Do you understand?"

Adam's face was so close to his that Percy stepped back. Percy nodded and Adam started to walk away but then he turned; he didn't want Percy to be at the house with Joe, didn't want Percy, in some way, to convince Joe that it was an accident if it hadn't been, to influence Joe to say it was something other than what it was. He knew that Ben would be at Joe's side as they waited for the doctor but Percy might play out a dramatic scene of brotherly love and Adam couldn't have that.

"You're coming for the doctor with me," Adam said to Percy and then climbed on the seat of the buckboard which had been emptied of its supplies. Percy hurried over and scrambled up onto the other side of the seat; he knew that if he didn't, Adam might grab him by the shirtfront as Joe had and literally throw him onto it. Hoss drove out the buckboard carrying Joe and Ben home.


	18. Chapter 18

**EIGHTEEN**

Adam and Percy rode in silence. Percy held onto the side of the seat and the wooden back as Adam drove the wagon roughly and at some points, the buckboard was close to turning over and dumping the two men onto the ground.

"Why don't you just shoot me and end my suffering," Percy yelled out over the clattering noise of the buckboard.

"Don't tempt me but that would be subverting my intent," Adam called back. "I want you to be miserable. My only regret is that you're not suffering as much as my brother is."

"I am your brother," Percy loudly reiterated. "And you might as well accept it. I'll be around for a long time."

"What would it take to make you leave? How much?" Adam wanted Percy gone and the sooner the better. Adam knew that Percy was cold and calculating and really had no desire for family; Percy wanted money, a never-ending flow of money so that he could spend his life gambling and eating well and sleeping in fine hotels. Percy also wanted, Adam surmised, money to satisfy his sexual tastes, whatever they may be. But Adam wanted him gone.

"Are you trying to bribe me?" Percy yelled as he was being bounced about of the wooden seat. Percy considered that things may be looking up; perhaps Adam could convince Ben to cut Percy his share of the Ponderosa and its holdings now. Percy's plan was, if he had the time, to find who was Ben's ranching or business rival and sell his shares to them. And if not that, Percy thought that he could sell his shares back to Ben at twice the cost. Either way, he would be a wealthy man.

"Yes." Adam answered.

"Let me think," Percy said. "I'll let you know-that is if I have a price."

"You have a price," Adam said, slowing down the buckboard as the doctor's office was just on the outskirts of Virginia City. He pulled up the horse in front of Dr. Martin's home which also held his surgery. Then Adam leaned menacingly toward Percy who shrunk back. "I'll offer terms and you can either take them or not-your choice. But I assure you, any offer I make will be preferable to the alternative." Then Adam jumped down and rushed into the Doctor's surgery door.

Percy sat and thought, trying to compose himself. Adam never reacted as he expected and that frustrated him. Joe had reacted with quick anger and Hoss had been frustrated and helpless under Percy's barrage of insults, but Adam-he seemed to thwart Percy's intentions. Percy felt his plan wasn't working-Joe wasn't dead, at least not yet. He was certain that Joe wouldn't have survived a fall from the roof but when Percy slid out his foot and Joe tripped over it, he had fallen on the slanted roof and rolled over once before he rolled off the roof completely. Therefore, he hadn't fallen head-first and broken his neck or slammed to the ground flatly on his back, shocking all his organs. No, his side had taken the brunt of the impact, obviously thrusting his shoulder against his collarbone which snapped. But Percy knew there had to be more serious complications in store. There had to be and he could only hope that Joe would die-and maybe he could ensure that result. But Percy felt that Adam would make certain that Percy was never alone with Joe so Percy started devising another plan. Hop Sing had unintentionally given him the idea.

Linda Lawrence had told her son that Ben adored his youngest boy, Joseph, who should have been Percy. That remark alone made Percy hate Joe. Joe, according to his mother, had robbed him of his birthright. Therefore, Joe deserved to die and have the situation righted. And, she had told Percy, if Joe died, Ben would be a broken man; he loved all his sons but Joe was his heart. Therefore, stab at his heart with her blessings. "Remember," she said in her failing voice, "Ben Cartwright ruined my life and also yours. Never forget. Remember it."

Adam came out of the office and took up the reins from the seat of the buckboard.

"What did the doctor say? Don't tell me he can't come?" Percy made a face of shocked disappointment. "How very awful that would be!"

"He'll be there as soon as he finishes up with his patient in the office but I have to go to the pharmacy to pick up some concoction he wrote down. I have to wait until it's compounded." Adam snapped the reins and headed the buckboard to the pharmacy. When he pulled up, he looped the reins over the hitching rail and went inside.

Percy watched Adam through the window and slyly smiled. The pharmacist was with a slightly plump, middle-aged woman, and they were discussing whatever was written on the paper she held. Adam impatiently waited but finally intruded and talked with barely suppressed annoyance to the woman and the pharmacist, he slammed the doctor's note on the counter. The woman backed off a way and nodded to the pharmacist, saying something before Adam tipped his hat to her and she rushed out.

"Excuse me," Percy said to the woman. He wore no hat or he would have chivalrously tipped it to her but he did leap down from the buckboard and give her a small bow. "I don't mean to seem forward but I'm so worried about Joseph Cartwright. Is the pharmacist able to fill the script?"

The woman looked him up and down. He didn't look like anyone from Virginia City and then he had that accent-obviously an outsider. "Who are you to be so concerned?"

"Forgive me, madam," Percy said in his cultured British voice, one that bespoke an education at a prestigious private school that would have been recognized by anyone in the whole of England and immediately have certified his class in society, "but I am Lord Percival Chadwick-I mean Cartwright, Ben Cartwright's son."

"Ben's son?" The woman's eyes opened wide. This was a juicy piece of gossip.

Percy looked down as if with shame. "Yes. I afraid that I am…a bastard, but a son nonetheless. I was with Joseph when he fell off the roof and injured himself. I am waiting for Adam so that we may fly as swift as the wind to the Ponderosa to hopefully save young Joseph's life." Percy arranged his face in a piteous expression.

"Oh," the woman said. "Forgive my rudeness; I didn't know."

"That's quite all right, madam," Percy said. "A lady of your obvious fine breeding shouldn't talk to ruffians such as myself without being first properly introduced. After all, with these clothes…" He looked down at his shirt and jeans with sadness. "But we were working and I…forgive my apparel."

"Quite all right, …Lord Percival did you say?"

"You, madam, may call me Percy, if you so choose. I do feel a certain kinship with you-you are yourself so refined."

She smiled and blushed; she was actually talking to a member of royalty or at least as close to it as she ever would and she also had been privy to a delicious piece of Cartwright gossip. She was already planning who she would first tell. "I am Mrs. Robert Bowen. It is a pleasure to meet you and I do hope that we will see you around Virginia City under more pleasant circumstances. I have a daughter, Margaret. Just lovely and I so do not want her to keep the company of cowboys. Perhaps you would care to come for dinner some night, Lord Chadwick-I mean Lord Cartwright."

"Please, just Percy and if your daughter is as lovely as you," Percy said, taking her hand and placing a soft kiss on it, "I shall be delighted."

Adam came out of the pharmacist to see the two talking. He stood next to them, his arms crossed high on his chest.

"You of course," Percy said with a gesture toward Adam, "know my brother…oh, I suppose I wasn't to let that out yet, Adam."

"Isn't it nice to finally find your long-lost brother?" Mrs. Bowen asked.

"That's yet to be seen," Adam said, tipping his hat to indicate the end of the conversation but Percy took Mrs. Bowen's plump hand and held it in both of his.

"Please, Mrs. Bowen," Percy said in a sincere way, "don't pass along that piece of knowledge-about my birth being less than respectable and who my father really is...but I don't even know why I should ask; a woman of your fine taste and culture certainly wouldn't gossip, especially about such an unimportant person as myself."

"Of course," Mrs. Bowen said. "Good to see you, Adam. Give my husband's and my regards to your father and I hope that young Joseph recovers from his accident."

"Thank you," Adam said with a lowering of his head. Adam turned to look at Percy. "Well, you just ensured that everyone in town-probably in the whole territory-will know about you and also about Joe."

"Have I?" Percy said. "My, my. Family secrets are so hard to keep. Did you get the medicine?"

"It'll take about a half hour," he said. Adam pulled out his pocket watch. "In the meantime, we need to have a little talk.'

"About what?" Percy had calmed down after talking to the woman; his confidence had returned.

"I have a little over ten thousand in my personal account. It's all yours right now if you'll sign a paper in front of the bank notary saying that you release all claim, now and in the future, to the Ponderosa and all our business holdings."

"Ten thousand? That's it? Oh, Adam, I did my research before I even showed at the door to the Cartwright family home and I know what my share-divided by five-maybe four if Joe dies…" and that was as far as Percy went because Adam grabbed him by his shirt front again.

"You better pray that Joe doesn't. Get on your knees and pray." Percy grabbed Adam's wrist with both his hands; Adam had the shirt twisted so tightly that the back tail of the shirt pulled out of his trousers. Adam began to push Percy down and Percy's knees buckled under him. Finally Percy was on his knees and Adam loomed above him, gripping him and through clenched teeth, Adam said, "Pray. Not just for him but for your own deliverance."

People in the street had stopped to stare and then Adam heard his name called and he turned his head.

"Piper," Adam said quietly under his breath and released Percy who grabbed his neck and coughed. He knew his face was red; not just due to Adam twisting the shirt so tightly but because he was embarrassed to be down on his knees in the dusty street. Percy grabbed the side of the buckboard to help himself stand and pulled in deep breaths to calm himself.

Piper stood on the sidewalk and Adam's heart rose and he forgot about Joe, Percy and anything else. In this whole awful situation, she was the only spot of joy he had. He rushed over to her while Percy watched, grinning. He now knew what Mrs. Jeffers looked like and seeing Adam with her, seeing his face soften and seeing him smile at her made Percy even surer that she was the way to destroy Adam. And after this, Percy was more determined and he hated Mrs. Jeffers for no other reason except that Adam loved her.

"Adam, I saw you and I wondered what's wrong." Piper glanced at the slender young man who joined Adam and who stood a step or two behind him with a sly smile. The same young man whom Adam had kneeling in the dust just moments before.

"Aren't you going to introduce me to this beautiful woman with the most charming accent?" Percy asked. "And may I say, you are lovely, just lovely. A vision in rose pink and such a delightful bonnet." Percy looked Piper up and down, a lascivious expression in his eyes.

Piper tightened her manteau at her throat; she didn't care for this young man or the way he looked at her.

"No, I'm not going to introduce you," Adam said and then turned his back again on Percy. "I'm sorry, Piper. I was going to come to see you and Nash today but my brother, Joe, he had an accident and I needed to get the doctor. I'm waiting for the medicine now."

"I'm so sorry, Adam. Is there anything that I can do? Just ask."

"No, there's nothing."

"Nothing?" Percy said with a tone of outrage. "Why he fell off of her roof! Don't you hold her the least bit responsible?"

"What?" Piper looked at Adam. "My roof? What does he mean?"

"He doesn't mean anything but to cause trouble. Don't be concerned, Piper. I'm sure my brother will be fine as soon as the doctor gets there and Joe starts the medicine. I'm waiting for it now. I'll come out to see you and your husband in a day or two and you can move into the house once we fix it up."

"No, Adam." Piper gathered herself for a moment before she looked back at Adam. "Nash and I were discussing it and we're going to go on to Sacramento as we had originally planned. I hope your family won't be offended. I was going to hire someone to deliver this letter." Piper opened her reticule and pulled out a folded piece of paper that had been sealed with wax. "But I can hand it to you now."

"No, Piper, please. Just wait before you do anything, before you leave. Things are just so…" Adam grabbed her hands that still held the note and pulled them to his chest, his large hands swallowing hers. "Just wait one more day, one more."

"Adam, I…," Piper lowered her voice so that only he could hear her. "If I stay any longer…I can't keep this secret from him. It's not right." Piper stopped herself. The young man was avidly trying to listen, was far too interested in her and Adam's conversation. "All right, Adam." Piper said with resignation, "we'll wait until Monday, the day after tomorrow."

The pharmacist stepped outside his store and called for Adam. "I have the compound ready. Didn't take as long as I thought."

Adam nodded to the pharmacist. "Until Monday, Piper. I'll come to see the two of you, Monday."

"If that's what you'd like, Adam. But I meant what I said about helping. If I can in any way, let me know. And that means the house as well. If we stay here, well, fixing it up would make me feel that it's really my home-at least for the time we're there."

"All right," he said and then, with regret, Adam released her hands and left Piper in order to pay for the mixture that he hoped would help with any possible infection as the doctor said.

Piper looked after Adam wistfully. Her longing and yearning for him was obvious, especially to Percy who prided himself on reading people.

"He's so sad," Percy said with false gravity. "So sad."

Piper turned to him. "I would imagine that he is, with his brother so injured."

"My brother too," Percy said as if offended.

"Your brother? I didn't know there was another brother. Who are you?" Piper looked at him warily. She didn't care for this man who seemed like the "subtile" serpent in Genesis.

"Allow me to introduce myself. Lord Percy Chadwick and I am honored, nay, delighted and honored to make the acquaintance of such a beautiful and gracious lady as yourself."

"I thought you said that you were a Cartwright, a brother of Adam?"

"My name is different, at least for now. You see, it appears that Benjamin Cartwright had a little peccadillo when younger and it involved my mother…" Percy saw Adam come out of the pharmacy holding a packet and knew he had to hurry. "If you would like to help the Cartwrights, well, they-I should say, we-need someone to sit with Joe during the day so that we may continue with ranching-the hands still being gone and such. And then we have the rental property to fix up to make it inhabitable for someone as gracious as yourself…"

Adam walked up and looked suspiciously at Percy, wondering what he had been saying, but turned to Piper. "I have to head back now but please, stay until Monday as you said you would."

"I promise, Adam," Piper said and began to walk away, then turned to face him. "And, Adam, I wouldn't mind sitting with Joe during the day. If you need someone, please let me be the one you ask. I owe you so much." And then she turned and walked in the direction of the Palace Hotel while both men watched her walk away.


	19. Chapter 19

**NINETEEN**

"She has a nice swing to those supple hips, doesn't she?" Percy remarked to Adam about Piper. "Can you imagine holding on to them as you thrust…" He never had the chance to finish his sentence because Adam turned on him.

"You mind your own business about her."

"Well, it just seems a shame, that's all," Percy said. "I mean here she is, such a lovely, beautiful, desirable woman and her husband can't even see her. How very, very sad. What do you think they do to get in the mood, so to speak?"

"I don't think about it," Adam said as he climbed up in the buckboard. Percy hurried to climb up as Adam was already backing the horse up.

"Well," Percy said, once he was seated and holding onto the side of the buckboard for he knew that Adam was going to hurry the horse. At one point on the ride to town, Percy swore that his kidneys were being damaged by all bouncing around on the rough roads. "I would think that you had thought about coitus with her before, that you had thought of it many times since you seem to know her quite well."

Adam almost asked Percy why he would say such filth about Piper, had almost allowed himself to be dragged in again by Percy's comment but he said nothing. Adam just breathed deeply. He needed to release his anger and frustration with Percy and the situation with Piper.

Percy waited but Adam didn't take the bait. "You called her by her first name, Piper, I believe. And then you held her hands to your chest, oh, so tenderly." Percy watched Adam who just continued to drive the horse over the holes and ruts in the road. But Percy wasn't fooled; Adam's jaw was working and Percy knew that he was touching Adam's sensitive spot. Percy lauded himself with eavesdropping on Ben and Adam last night-he had learned many valuable things.

"Now she's the type of woman I would want to marry, should I ever marry. What about you, Adam? Is she the type that you would like to marry? To take to your bed? I would. I would love to have her under my power, under my control." Percy waited but Adam didn't react. So Percy decided to push even harder. "Do you think she likes pain? I would like to do things to her, to torment her and then, when she was just on the edge…"

Percy stopped because he couldn't speak. Adam had pulled up the horse with one hand, causing Percy to lurch forward and when he rocked back, Adam's other hand had shot out and grabbed Percy around the throat. Percy grabbed at Adam's hand, unable to breathe and tried desperately to pull Adam's hand away but it was useless. Adam's hand held him securely and he leaned in closely and hissed at Percy, "If you ever hurt her in any way, I'll kill you. Do you understand?"

Percy made an effort to nod to show he understood, his hands grasping Adam's wrist. He felt the desperation build inside him, the panic as his lungs screamed for oxygen and then the world went black while Adam watched Percy's eyes roll back in his head. When he came to, Percy found himself slumped in the seat, his head lolling and he noticed that when he swallowed, his throat ached; he realized with a sense of intense fear that Adam could have crushed his windpipe and tossed his body off the buckboard and no one would have known or even cared. Percy looked over at Adam who was still coolly driving the horse on as if nothing had happened in the wagon-as if he hadn't come close to killing his passenger with his own hands.

But Adam's seeming composure didn't reflect his inner turmoil. He had frightened himself; he could have easily, far too easily, killed Percy and taken pleasure in it. He had let Percy get to him and now Percy knew that he treasured Piper Jeffers; Adam had shown his hand. And so he feared for Piper and for himself. He never thought that he would be afraid of Percy. He had been holding him in disdain as a mere weakling but now Adam saw things differently; Percy was as dangerous as his mother had been, the Countess.

When Adam arrived at the Ponderosa, the doctor had been there about ten minutes before him and was up in Joe's room. The wait at the pharmacy had caused him to arrive later than Dr. Martin.

"How is he?" Adam asked Hoss when he entered.

"Can't say. Pa's upstairs with the doctor. Pa and I had to hold Joe down while Doc set his collarbone-snapped it right back into place. Sounded ugly." Hoss' face showed the pain he felt at seeing Joe's agony at having the bone set. "Joe passed out for a bit."

Adam turned to Percy who stepped back. "Must run in the family," he said looking at Percy. "Well," Adam continued, "I have the medicine Dr. Martin sent me for. It's supposed the keep the wound from festering. Henry said to make a poultice and to place it over the spot. I hope it works. I'm going to take it upstairs." And Adam took the stairs, two at a time.

"Well," Percy said, finally finding a certain calm since Adam had left and the soreness in his throat had dissipated somewhat, "I could use some tea and biscuits right now." Percy said and dropped into a chair by the fireplace.

Hoss looked at Percy. "You do seem a little, well, like you been scared to death. You okay, boy?"

"If I had a nice cuppa, I would be. How about you popping off to the kitchen, Hoss, and brewing me some tea and bringing me a tin of sweet biscuits. You don't need to put them on a plate. I'll forgo the niceties of tea for today. Besides, I doubt your hands are clean."

"Well, for one," Hoss said, "I ain't about to make you no tea. You want tea, you go make it. And as far as them sweet biscuits, we ain't got none and even if we did, I wouldn't fetch 'em for you."

"But I'm a guest," Percy said, "new here, and you, as one of the hosts, are to serve me."

"You claim to be a Cartwright and we Cartwrights fend for ourselves. And if you didn't go and make Hop Sing so dang mad that he up and quit, well, he'd be here to make you some tea and biscuits."

"Yes," Percy said. "I do suppose that you have a point there." Percy stood up and looked at Hoss with wide, innocent eyes. "I suppose that it is my fault that Hop Sing left-mea culpa. So, to make up for it, tomorrow I'll go find us a cook-unless, of course, someone can convince Hop Sing to return. I doubt that I would be the one to do so"

"I don't know "bout Hop sing comin' back as long as you're still here."

"Well," Percy said, heading for the kitchen. "Now that I know the way to Virginia City, I'll take it personally upon myself to find a new cook-one who 'can' cook, unlike Hop Sing. Your-I mean our father has enough on his mind. It's the least I can do." And Percy disappeared into the kitchen and Hoss went back to his worries over Joe. And as Percy began to fill the teapot from the kitchen pump, he also began to consider how he could use the situation to his benefit-there had to be a way-there always was.

Sunday morning, Adam awoke with a sense of foreboding. It was still dark outside but his ears were straining; he could have sworn that something, some sound, had woken him so he slipped silently out of bed and put on his robe, tying the belt. He slowly opened his door and seeing no one, went out into the hall. The only light was from Joe's partially opened door. Adam knew that his father was in there sitting by Joe's bedside. Their father always sat up by them-a holdover from when they were children and he and Hop Sing had taken turns sitting by their sickbeds.

Hop Sing. With everything else, Adam had almost forgotten about him. Adam made a mental note that he had to find Hop Sing and try to convince him to come back and not just for cooking their meals. Although Adam believed in science and modern medicine, he didn't dismiss the herbs and concoctions that Hop Sing brewed in his teas and made into poultices.

Adam pushed the bedroom door open and saw his father asleep in the large upholstered chair, his head lolling, and Percy stood over Joe's bed, looking down at him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Adam asked in a low voice.

Percy swung around. "I was just checking in on Joe, that's all. I've been concerned, so distressed that I couldn't sleep."

Ben jerked awake at the sound of voices. "Joe? Adam?" Ben saw that Adam was there and then he noticed Percy. He stood up and pushed his way to stand above Joe. He placed his hand on Joe's forehead. "He's still feverish," Ben said. "Adam, would you get me a wet cloth."

"Yeah." Adam went to the wash stand and wet the folded cloth Ben had been using and gave it to his father who placed it on Joe's forehead.

"I can sit with him for a while, Pa. Why don't you go lie down and get some sleep."

"Or I could sit with him," Percy volunteered. "After all, I do feel as if I should have been paying more attention to my younger brother up there on that roof. Therefore, I feel a bit of guilt. I would be glad to keep vigil and change out the wet cloth and soothe his raging fever."

"Yes, I'm sure that you would," Adam said. After the doctor had left, Adam had asked Joe if Percy had pushed him, tripped him or in any way caused him to fall but Joe said that he couldn't remember, only that somehow he had lost his balance and had fallen. Adam believed that Percy was guilty but even if Joe he had accused Percy, Adam knew that the accusation could be blamed on Joe's feverish state and that Percy would declare his innocence by claiming to the sheriff, Roy Coffee, that Adam had led Joe on with leading questions.

"No," Ben said. "Thank you, Adam, but I'll sit with him." Ben reached out and pushed Joe's dark, damp curls off his forehead. "I want to be here in case he wakes up or he takes a turn for the worst."

"All right, Pa. I'll put on some coffee for us."

"And tea? Will you make some tea? I haven't developed a taste for that acrid substance that passes for coffee around here."

Adam reached out and took Percy's arm. "Let's both of us go to the kitchen and make the coffee." He pulled Percy out of the room into the hall and closed the door behind him. "Now what the hell were you doing in there?"

"I was concerned about Joe, that's all. You couldn't possibly think that I had any evil intentions. Why, Adam, you injure my delicate feelings. You keep this up, this campaign against me, and I might infer that you don't care very much for me, that you have no brotherly affection and I do so love you."

Adam looked at Percy with disgust. But Adam remembered how he had let Percy get to him yesterday and was determined not to let it happen again; he couldn't lose control again. He turned and went down the stairs and Percy lightly followed him; he was thrilled that he had forced Adam to hold himself in check. Percy knew that the strain would eventually wear Adam down. How proud of him his mother would be. He would teach Adam Cartwright what cruelty was.


	20. Chapter 20

**TWENTY**

Percival Benjamin Lawson Chadwick had been born a weak baby who mewled constantly. His high-pitched cry annoyed his mother to the point that she had his nursery moved to the other side of the house and told the nanny not to bother her with the child. Originally, Linda Lawson had told her husband that Percy was born early and that was why he was so sickly but the true reason was that in order to hide her pregnancy as long as possible, Linda Lawson ate sparingly so as not to gain weight. And when the child was born, Linda hated him. To her, the infant represented all the stinging words that Ben had spoken when he had refused her way of life in New Orleans, refused to marry her, to live in the house she had chosen, and was appalled at her suggestion to send Adam away to school and to be rid of Hop Sing. She had been willing to pass up her rich fiancé, Lord Millburn Chadwick, and all the power and wealth he had to marry Ben Cartwright who was struggling to support his family and his "farm," as Linda called it. She would have helped Ben become even more powerful as a partner in the fur trade with her father-she had arranged that, but he refused her-dismissed her even after she had given her body to him. And instead of the happiness she felt was her due, she had given birth to this weak child that to her, looked like a skinny, plucked chicken. He had none of the vibrancy, the lust for life that Ben Cartwright had. But he was Ben's son. Of that she was sure.

Linda Lawson had, as was the tradition, handed Percy over to a wet nurse and he grew slowly but became a bit healthier although his lungs were weak. He had colds and even a bout with pneumonia but lived. Linda felt a slight disappointment at his recovery. Eventually, Linda confessed to her husband that Percy was not his progeny but that the father was no one he knew, and that she had been, according to her, seduced by a man who was a friend of her father's; she had been a naive victim of an older, sophisticated man; Percy was a mistake that she had to live with. And because Lord Chadwick didn't care to be reminded of his wife's earlier peccadillo-even though she claimed to have been coerced, as soon as Percy was old enough, he was sent off to boarding schools a great distance away.

But Percy always seemed to be asked to leave his many schools for various reasons; the boy stole or he caused havoc among the students by playing one against the other. Percy was highly clever and manipulative and although it was not allowed, he managed to manipulate the younger boys into performing sexual favors. But Percy did successfully remain in his final school for the last five years of his education but Lord Chadwick who loathed the young man, felt it was merely because Percy had managed not to be caught doing something distasteful. But Lord Chadwick did note that whenever Percy spent time at the manor, unusual things happened.

When Percy was about twelve and home between schools, Lord Chadwick's favorite hunting dog, Feather, began to howl and cry and did so for hours until finally, the dog vomited a mixture of blood and a white grainy substance and then died, its body twitching and heaving. The kennel master said that it looked like arsenic poisoning. Lord Chadwick asked how that could be and raged against the kennel master who said that the dog, somehow, must have gotten into the arsenic imbued fruit that he used to kill rats. Lord Chadwick raised his riding crop, the one he always carried outside and whenever he took his dogs out, and the kennel master cringed to bear the blows he would receive, when he saw a small shadow. Lord Chadwick turned and saw Percy standing there.

"Did you quiet the dog, father," he asked. "I couldn't sleep last night due to his howling." Percy, his pale, blond hair hanging limply, his eyes large and dark, looked the picture of purity and innocence but Lord Chadwick felt a chill run through him. Somehow he sensed the boy was culpable, that the boy knew that Feather was his favorite dog and wanted to kill the dog to hurt him but there was nothing to substantiate his feelings so he just turned and left the kennel. The next day, Percy was off to another school which had agreed to take him but at a cost higher than its normal tuition.

And when Percy was older and through with his schooling, Lord Chadwick was called to a brothel in the seedier part of London. When he entered the dimly lit building, he was approached by an obsequious man who told Lord Chadwick that he had decided that instead of handing the nasty matter over to the police, he had decided instead to allow the implicated young man's father to hush the matter.

"To what matter are you referring?" said Lord Chadwick. The whole place offended his delicate taste. The filthy streets he had needed to ride through in his carriage, the terrible smell that emanated from the brothel-the whole matter smacked of scandal.

"It seems, sir," the man said in the continuous stance of a toady, "that your son, Sir Percival, has had an accident-or so he claims. A young girl, one of my employees, has died. She, of course, has not been killed he says-she merely died unassisted although the police may believe that she has been from the look of things."

"Where is…Percival?"

"Follow me," the man said. He led Lord Chadwick up a set of narrow, winding stairs to a small room. Lord Chadwick saw Percy huddled in a corner wearing only his shirt with an open collar and on the floor lay a young girl, her eyes still open although unfocused and her face bruised and swollen. Her lip was split and her thin gown ripped open. It looked as if she had been strangled as as bruises were on her neck.

Percy looked up at Lord Chadwick, panic in his face. "You must help me," Percy said. "I beg of you, Father, help me. It was all an accident. She bit me, hurt me and I was paying her to let me do those things; I became carried away. I didn't mean for her to die. I only needed to do certain things, I needed to and when I tried, she fought me. If she only hadn't fought me everything would have been fine but she did. She hurt me. I am not the one to be hurt-she was, but she protested. She screamed and I had to shut her up. Help me. Pay the man, please, Father. Pay him what he asks."

And so Lord Chadwick paid a great amount of money to the unctuous man who ran the brothel while Percy quickly dressed and the two rode back to the manor in silence. The only thing that Lord Chadwick said was that his mother was not to know what happened-no one was to know, and he warned Percy that if he ever found himself in trouble again, Lord Chadwick would formally disown him. Gaming debts were one thing as he, himself, had over the years lost large amounts at the table but beating a young whore to death, and a pretty one at that, was just too much, accident or not.

Percy said that understood and once again, he thanked his Father. And he was grateful but nevertheless, he hated the man even more; he hated having to owe anyone-it made one inferior to the other for his largesse and so Percy amused himself on the ride back by calculating how he would spend his share of the money from the estate once Lord Chadwick died.

And so Percy did spend a great deal of money once Lord Chadwick died. It was stress, the family doctor had said of Lord Chadwick's death, that caused his heart to give out. And Percy feigned grief and then went to the bank with the death certificate and informed the banker that he, the now Lord Percy Chadwick, was the controller of the estate and immediately took out a large sum of money and spent the day in a gambling house where he actually ended up ahead, and later rewarded himself with a slender youth who was employed in one of the more varied brothels that catered to all tastes.

And now he found himself in the western area of North America where people were crude and vulgar. And he stood and watched while his oldest brother made a pot of coffee. And Percy hated Adam most of all. Percy was determined to make Adam suffer, suffer until he couldn't bear it anymore. Percy didn't so much wish to see Adam dead but to see him grovel and beg Percy for mercy, and then he would make Adam lick his boots and then show Adam none—no mercy at all.

Joe, Ben and Hoss, they could die. Percy would be happy to sweep them away and have the majority of the Ponderosa. But one day soon Percy would have Adam under his thumb and eventually, Percy would own it all because Adam would sign his share over. And Percy would sell it all-everything-and return to England as one of the wealthiest men there. All he had to do was plan properly. Noting so vague as tripping Joe and hoping he would be killed. No, that had been foolish, he told himself, an impromptu act that he committed when he saw a chance. It hadn't been planned out properly. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

"What's goin' on?" Hoss asked as he entered the kitchen. "Little early for all of us to be up. I know it ain't Joe-I already checked on Pa and 'im-although he's still feverish. You makin' breakfast, Adam?"

"No, just coffee. Want some? I'm taking a cup up to Pa."

"I'll pour myself a cup." Hoss gave Percy a wide berth; he was leaning against the butcher block, watching the two brothers with a smile of amusement. "What's so dang funny?" Hoss asked.

"Nothing, absolutely nothing. Just making plans for the day."

"I was thinking', Adam," Hoss said. "There ain't much we can do 'round here so why don't we go fix up that property?"

"I'll do that," Adam said, pouring a mug of coffee for his father. "I want you to stay here with Pa-see if you can spell him; he needs to get some rest." Adam carried the mug out of the kitchen. "Oh, and fix him something to eat. Just anything-get him to eat. If Joe gets worse, come get me, otherwise, I'll be home a little after noon. I'm just going to straighten up the place and then go see Nash Jeffers tomorrow."

"And his wife," Percy added. "Don't forget his wife. She's so delicious that I don't know how you could forget her. Like a ripe peach just waiting to be plucked." And Percy gave a small laugh as Adam glanced at him and then went upstairs.

Percy rode into town; it had taken him longer to get to Virginia City than he had thought because he had made a few wrong turns but he knew that he would find the return easier. He wasn't sure about finding his way to town and back in the dark but that would only give him the excuse for staying in town all night.

Percy wasn't quite sure where he should start looking for a cook but then he found the seedier section of Virginia City, the far side of town where the squatters lived and those who lacked the ability, mainly due to opium or alcohol, to hold down a job with the railroad and whose luck had failed at finding gold or silver. This was where the petty thieves lived and the families with lazy fathers and dirty children with dried, white, crusty snot on their upper lips and noses.

The people who lived there in their shacks and hovels eyed him suspiciously as he rode by in his fine clothes. He stopped in front of a brothel where a man sat smoking a pipe.

"We're closed," the man said.

"That's fine. I need to talk business with whomever runs this fine establishment."

"Why? It's a little early in the day for that and most of the 'employees' sleep 'til noon if not longer. You got yourself an itch that needs scratchin' this time of day and you'll pay dearly. Easier to scratch it yourself."

"May I please talk to the proprietor?" Percy tried not to show his annoyance with the slovenly man. The man just stared at him and then Percy realized what was needed. He pulled out his wallet and removed a bill. He handed it down and the man took it.

"Now the owner, if that's what that 'propter' word means, would be Miss June and she'd need a little something extra to roll out of bed this early." The man still sat as he tucked the bill in his shirt pocket.

"Oh, very well," Percy said and took out his wallet again. This time he pulled out a five dollar bill. "Wake her up."

The man slowly stood up and took the money from Percy, grinning at Percy's annoyed look. "Follow me," he said and Percy dismounted and followed the man into the darkened house that reeked of alcohol, sweat and urine. He was directed to wait in a cheaply-furnished parlor where he dared not sit down; even in the dull light, he could see that the upholstery was stained. He shuddered to think with what. Percy heard a noise and looked up and saw a blowsy woman in a thin wrap walk in. Her hair was an odd color of red, obviously dyed, and her cheeks and lips still bore vestiges of rouge from the night before.

"I hear you wanna do business with me?" she said. "If it's to get a pop, I don't do that no more."

"No, that's noy it." The idea of receiving a "pop" from Miss June almost gave him the shivers. "But I do believe that we may come to an understanding-a business understanding when I tell you what I need. Do you have anyone here who is good at domesticity."

"At what?" The woman sat down heavily. "Frank," she called out. "Bring me my coffee and put a shot in it, would you?" The man answered that he would. "You want any?" she asked Percy.

"Thank you but, no." Percy doubted that the glass would be clean and the liquor they served here would be so crude that he believed that it would eat through his gut. "By domesticity, I mean, do you have any employee who can cook and keep house?"

Miss June looked at the slender young man oddly. Well, she thought to herself, it takes all kinds. "Let's talk," she said and Percy smiled.

At the rental house, Adam pulled the sheets from the furniture and opened up all the windows to air it. He looked around. The place wasn't good enough for Piper, he thought. Piper deserves something grander. He thought back to how he and Piper had discussed possibly moving back to Nevada after his apprenticeship and while holding Piper in his arms, he described the type of house he would build for her. She laughed and told him that she would be happy living in a cave as long as it was with him. That would be all she needed, she had said. And Adam felt a stab of sadness at the memory and of how life had separated them when they had been so much in love.

But the house was a good one for a blind man; the floor plan was simple and the flow between the rooms carried no barriers. Once Nash familiarized himself to the placement of the furniture, he would be fine, Adam thought and that would make life easier for Piper.

So Adam stood in the middle of the parlor and looked around. He was satisfied with the way the place looked. Piper had told him not to make a fuss; she would enjoy making the place a home for them. And Adam remembered that it was she and Nash that she meant by the word "them"- Adam would always be a visitor now, an outsider.

So after one final look, Adam left the house, mounted up and rode back home to check on Joe before he went to Virginia City. He was going to look for Hop Sing and ask him to return. And then he was going to see Piper. He hadn't stopped thinking about her and he was worried. Adam wasn't exactly sure why he was worried or about what; it was some nebulous fear that he couldn't understand but it sat at the back of his mind and wouldn't let him rest but kept him in turmoil. He wanted Piper closer as soon as possible, somewhere that he could check on her, could make excuses to ride over and see her.

As he rode home, taking a shortcut through the stands of trees, Adam planned how he would approach Piper and Nash to convince them to stay and not to go on to Sacramento; he couldn't lose her again. Even though he knew that Piper would never be his, the knowledge of where she was, that she was close and that he could see her was enough-at least for the time. And he would make certain that she was happy, that she lacked for nothing.

Adam walked into a quiet house; no one was downstairs and there wasn't the usual clattering and clanging from the kitchen. He would have to convince Hop Sing to return and then maybe this hollow feeling would begin to be filled. That was it, Adam thought to himself—hollow, everything was hollow.

Even outside, things were quiet as if in a vacuum-empty of matter. Adam thought of the class he had taken in physics where they had discussed a vacuum. But Adam agreed with Descartes; a vacuum cannot exist in nature, something will always fill an empty space. "Horror vacuii"-nature abhors a vacuum. Yes, Adam thought, he agreed. In class, he had even argued against natural vacuums, postulating that only man could or would want to create a vacuum. But then another student raised the aspect of the universe, perhaps there was a vacuum in all of space and that the stars operated in a vacuum? But Adam, always the rationalist, said that the mere fact that we existed negated the aspect of the universe being in a vacuum. And the student was flustered and said that he, of course, was playing devil's advocate and merely arguing for argument's sake.

But now Adam wasn't so sure of himself, not quite so arrogant anymore and as comforting as it was to live in a world of absolutes, he knew there weren't any absolutes. He still had a spot, a vacuum, that Piper had once filled and when they were torn from each other, that hole, that empty lifeless hole in his being had never been filled and now it ached with emptiness. And Adam also knew that if Joe died, the hollow emptiness his father and he and Hoss would feel would never be filled. Empty. Completely empty and crying to be filled.

Adam knew the three ranch hands were out on the property, checking for mavericks, maintaining the young stock that hadn't been taken on the drive, and checking fence lines and making certain that the line shacks were stocked or taking note of what was needed if they weren't. They rest of the hands, the ones who had chosen to return to the Ponderosa after the drive, still wouldn't return for another month so there was enough to keep the three hands who had stayed behind busy. Adam had looked around the yard when he arrived home as he tied his horse to the hitching rail near the trough and the horse dipped its head to drink. And now he was standing in what appeared to be an empty house. He threw his hat on the credenza and climbed the stairs.

"Pa?" Adam asked when he opened Joe's bedroom door. "How's Joe?"

"Not good," Ben said, looking up at Adam. "He's burning up. I'm been wiping him down with cool water but it hasn't done much good." Ben's voice broke and Adam was embarrassed to see his father, his big, powerful father broken. Then Ben recovered. "Hoss has gone for Dr. Martin. I don't know what more he can do but…I'm hoping."

"Pa, I'll go to Frenchman's Creek. You know that water's freezing-it's glacier fed and I'll fill a barrel and bring it back. That'll help cool him down even more."

"Yes," Ben said. "I hadn't thought of that. Yes, Adam, that's a good idea." Ben sat slumped over, watching Joe, hoping, Adam knew, that Joe would open his eyes instead of occasionally moaning in his sleep.

"Where's Percy?" Adam asked. "Did he go into town with Hoss?"

"What? Percy? I don't think so. I don't know where he went. I don't care where he went."

"I'll go get the water. I won't be long." Adam rushed downstairs, grabbed up his hat and went out to the barn to find an empty barrel. He hoisted one up and placed in in the back of a small buggy out in the side yard. Then he hitched up one of the horses in the paddock but kept missing the hole in the strap to buckle on the traces. So he stopped and took a deep breath; he made himself settle down but it felt as if the fire that burned through Joe also burned through him. And then he finished and took off for Frenchman's Creek.


	21. Chapter 21

**TWENTY-ONE**

Hoss met Adam in the yard when he returned. He helped Adam carry the barrel of water into the kitchen where they filled a large tin pail with water.

"Dang," Hoss said, "that water makes this tin freezin'! Even the handle's cold."

"Good, now take it up to Pa, would you? I'm going to find Hop Sing and beg, bribe or threaten-anything for him to come back." Adam readjusted his hat.

"I hope you can," Hoss said as he hoisted the pail of water. "I don't know that we can go on much longer without 'im."

"Yeah, eating your cooking is about to do me in," Adam said. "Maybe Hop Sing'll have mercy on my soul-or my stomach."

"Ain't nobody makin' you eat it and you can take a try at cookin' anytime you want."

"Okay, okay. Now get this pail up to Pa, would you?"

"Good luck with Hop Sing. Tell 'im we need 'im bad." And Hoss hefted the pail of cold water up the stairs.

Adam stepped out just as Percy rode up on the mare he had chosen to ride. Behind him in a little buggy was a woman, an older woman, perhaps in her late thirties or early forties. She wore clean, homespun clothes and had a shawl over her shoulders and an odd, little hat perched on her head which only emphasized her abundant breasts and her wide hips. She had a round, plump face but a grim mouth that didn't seem accustomed to smiling.

Percy dismounted and Adam stood, arms akimbo.

"Well, Adam, my dearest brother, our problems are over-no more intestinal disorders. I hired a cook, Mrs. Delaney. She can also bake and will do light housekeeping. I told her that she would be paid two dollars a day and, if I found her work satisfactory-or if 'we' find her work satisfactory-after all, you are in charge now that our father is so distressed over our darling Joseph, that at the end of the month she would receive a bonus-from my own pocket," Percy said with a sense of pride as he patted his hand against his chest to emphasize that it would be his money. "Now I'm going to show her around the place so she can begin our lunch. My stomach is crying for some decent food." Percy rolled his eyes in mock distress. Then he went to help the woman down but turned to Adam. "I put the carriage on the Cartwright bill at the livery. The man was so gracious when he heard that I was a Cartwright. It seems that 'our' family holds sway with so many people. It's almost the same as being royalty." And Percy grinned. "I suppose that makes you the 'prince,' doesn't it? The king is dead! Long live the King!" And Percy giggled. "Perhaps I could be your consort."

Adam just glanced at Percy and then greeted Mrs. Delaney cautiously. "Good afternoon," Adam said, tipping his hat, "and welcome to the Ponderosa. I'm sure that you're more than qualified as a cook but your employment may be short-lived. You see, I'm off to try to convince our former cook to return. But in the meantime, bring your bags in the house and you can move into the cook's quarters downstairs-but please keep in mind that you may be asked to leave soon.

"I understand," Mrs. Delaney said. "I won't fully unpack. Now show me the kitchen." And Percy took her arm in his, picked up her valise and smiling at Adam who watched them, walked her into the house. Once they were standing inside the kitchen, Percy said to Mrs. Delaney, "Start today, do you understand?"

"I understand," she said. "Not all whores are idiots although I'm beginning to think that I wasn't too smart to take this job and to listen to you. And if you don't give me the money you promised me, well…"

"Oh, please," Percy said in disgust. "The fact that you are a whore means you do anything for money. And don't threaten me; you'll find that I can be more dangerous than I look. Now unpack and get started. Your quarters are back here." Percy waved to a door in the back of the kitchen that led to a room that had once been used as a small bunkhouse. "I'm sure you'll be very happy here," Percy said sarcastically and smiling to himself, went out to the great room and took the stairs to go show concern over Joe's deteriorating condition. The way things looked, Joe may very well succumb to his injuries; he was almost skeletal as he had lost so much weight-the fever seemed to burn the flesh from him and it appeared that he had fractured his arm on the same side as the broken collar bone. And even the presence of the doctor looking in on Joe and giving Ben hope did nothing to dampen Percy's high spirits but he did have to make a concerted effort to subdue his joy in front of his father.

But the doctor's news hadn't been good; Joe may have damaged his spleen or his liver or even his kidneys in the fall as the little urine he did void was tinged with pink. There was really nothing that Doctor Martin could do and Ben had begged him, "Paul, isn't there something you can do?"

"I can do minor surgery, but this, this requires a specialist and the nearest is probably in San Francisco."

"Well, we'll take him there, Just tell me who the doctor…"

"Ben," Paul Martin had said, placing a hand on Ben's shoulders, "Joe wouldn't survive the trip."

"I'll write. I'll pay the doctor whatever he asks…"

"Ben, doctors can't be bribed but I'll try to find someone who you can write. But the best treatment is to keep Joe cool in order to drop the fever and to keep him quiet."

And so, Percy thought, that is the end of that.

Adam first stopped by the laundry where Hop Sing's second cousin worked. He told Adam that Hop Sing was working in their Uncle Hop Lung's herb shop. Adam knew where the shop was so he maneuvered his way through the narrow streets of Chinatown, leading his horse instead of riding. He didn't want to seem arrogant; Hop Sing had once told him how the Manchu soldiers used to come into their villages to make certain that the people were still subservient and to look for beautiful girls to take back to the palace. The first line was walking infantry and then the officers on horseback-high and haughty. From their height on the horses' backs, they could better see whether anyone was hiding or scurrying off with a lovely daughter to secret away. So Adam walked and the merchants called out to him from their stalls to purchase their goods. They called out the praises of their wares, holding up live chickens, their skinny legs tied together. The chickens were passive, having long given up their struggles to be free. And women held up fish and called to him in English, "Fresh," one of the few words they knew but it came out as "flesh," a joke in Adam's mind since fish was the only "meat" that Catholics could eat on Sunday. He had become familiar with Lent, "carnivale," the time to say "farewell to the flesh," and to eat fish on Fridays, from Marie. They always had fish on Fridays when she was alive.

But Adam just ignored the many vendors, deftly avoiding the small children who begged coins from him. Finally Adam found Hong Sing's uncle's shop and tied his horse to a post that stood outside. A group of young boys stood around the horse and talked lowly to one another. Adam suspected that his horse would disappear but that if he would pay a small sum to the little kidnappers, the horse would quickly be found and returned to him. So Adam pulled out his gun as if to examine it and the boys backed off a way. Then Adam stared at them while they stared back. He picked out one boy and pointed to him, crooking his finger to call the boy closer.

The boy, after looking fearfully at the others who urged him forward with shoves and pushes, slowly and cautiously approached and Adam seated his pistol back in the holster. Adam kneeled down to see the boy eye to eye and took a coin out of his pocket.

"Sit," Adam said, patting the ground and the boy sat down in the dirt, His clothes were practically worn through and showed signs that he had been wearing them all week if not longer. Adam placed the coin in one of the boys' hands. He quickly closed his fist around it. Then Adam took his horse's reins and placed them across the palm of the boy's other hand. The boy clasped the reins tightly. Then Adam partly pantomimed that he was going in the shop and that if the boy and his horse were still there when he came out, there would be another coin. The boy smiled and nodded, crossed his skinny legs and sat, holding tightly on the reins and glowering at the other boys who still stood a distance away. Then Adam stood and patted the boy on the head and went inside the dim shop.

A woman was at the counter. Not many "round eyes" came into the shops in Chinatown but she recognized this tall, dark man as one of the Cartwrights so she called out to Hop Sing, her words raising and falling in the melodic sing-song tonalities of Chinese. What she had said, Adam didn't know, but he heard his name and guessed because Hop Sing came out from the back, frowning.

"You come ask Hop Sing come back to Ponderosa."

"Yes, I have but you could at least say hello first," Adam said.

"No say hello. Say goodbye. Hop Sing not go back."

"We need you. Percy hired a woman to do the cooking and cleaning but we'd rather have you there. She's in your kitchen, Hop Sing, using your new stove. What if she doesn't keep it clean? What if she dulls your knives, lets the coffee boil over and burn on the stove top?"

"Mistah Percy still live at Ponderosa?"

Adam tried to stall until he could come up with a satisfactory answer but couldn't. "Yes, he's still there but I think he's learned his lesson."

"No come back Mistah Percy still there. When he go, Hop Sing come back." He turned to leave but Adam gently grabbed his arm.

"Joe's been hurt. He fell off the roof of the house we're renting out, broke his collar bone and as it looks, fractured his arm, the long bone and he's running a high fever. The doctor thinks he may have internal injuries as well. We applied a poultice but it looks like an infection has set in. Please, Hop Sing, help him. Help us. Pa's at his wits end; he hasn't eaten in almost two days."

"You wait," Hop Sing said and went through the curtain into the back of the shop. Adam looked out the front door and his horse still quietly stood, the reins held tightly in the small boy's hand.

After about ten minutes, Hop Sing came back. He held two bags. The smaller of the two, Hop Sing handed first to Adam. "You make tea-two spoons in tea pot. Twenty minutes you let steep and make Little Joe drink. Pour down throat, spoon down-no matter, but he drink. Four time day you make drink. Fever go in two days. If not go, you come back, see Hop Sing."

Adam nodded that he understood and repeated back. "Steep two spoonfuls for twenty minutes and make Joe drink it four times a day-every six hours. If the fever isn't gone in two days, come back and see you."

"Yes," Hop Sing said. "This." Hop sing held up the larger bag. "This you mix with water-keep thick. Put on clean cloth and put on wound. Clean infection. Three days not gone, you come back."

Adam repeated the instructions again and then reached into his pocket for money but Hop Sing stopped him.

"No money. You take for Little Joe."

"Thank you, Hop Sing. Thank you." Adam suddenly felt relief. It was odd that he had more faith in Hop Sing's concoctions that Dr. Martin's ministering.

"You let Hop Sing know how Joe do."

"Yes, I will. I promise."

"And Mistah Ben, he must eat. You tell him I say he eat." Hop Sing shook his finger at Adam and Adam knew that the gesture was meant for his father.

Adam's horse was still there and he tossed another coin to the small boy who had watched it and the boy smiled after he caught the coin, bowed with a large grin and then ran off, the other boys running after him, probably in the hope that he would buy sugar candies. Adam smiled to himself. He hadn't succeeded in talking Hop Sing into returning but this was the next best thing; he had something to give Joe that might possibly be the answer. And then Adam thought of Piper.

Adam wanted to go see Piper-longed to see her face and hear her voice that brought back so many memories. He sat on his horse deciding, but responsibility took over and he knew that Joe's life may very well depend on what was in the two paper bags he had tucked in his saddlebags so he turned his horse toward home.

By Monday morning, Joe's fever was down a bit and he had opened his eyes to see his father sitting beside him. The infection still didn't look good and Dr. Martin who had stopped by before he went to check on Mrs. Tandy's sick child, said that he may need to cut out some of the necrotic flesh but he would know for sure tomorrow.

Adam didn't care much for Mrs. Delaney but he had to admit she could cook. The Sunday she started, she made a huge pot of Irish stew and hot, fluffy biscuits. Hoss ate until as he said that he thought he would bust a gut. He raved over the food and had three helpings. Adam just shook his head and smiled at Hoss' prodigious appetite.

Percy, as usual, ate sparingly and Adam admitted to Percy that Mrs. Delaney was a good choice. Percy, pulled out one of the narrow cigars he smoked and kept in a monogrammed silver case-Lord Chadwicks's-and sat back to enjoy seeing Hoss eat. Then, after supper, Adam took a bowl of stew up to his father who tried to feed some to Joe but he turned his head and said that he couldn't eat. So Adam said that his father had better clean the bowl with the biscuit and eat it all. He realized that he was speaking to his father as if he was the parent and his father the child but he was worried. His father seemed to be aging more each day and never left Joe's room.

"Why don't you go wash up," Adam suggested when he went to retrieve the bowl of stew which was barely touched but at least the biscuit and butter was eaten.

"I don't want to leave Joe," Ben answered.

"I'll sit with him. Go wash and shave and put on some clean clothes-you'll feel better."

Ben slowly stood. "I guess you're right," Ben said. "Promise me you won't leave him alone and that you'll come get me if he wants anything."

"I promise, Pa. Now go on. I'll stay."

And with one last glance at his son who lay helpless in the bed, Ben left for a wash and a shave, determined to return as soon as possible; Joe needed him.

There had been a nice spread for breakfast Monday morning, much more than Adam and Hoss could eat. Mrs. Delaney served them and filled their plates, giving Hoss double portions and Hoss ate heartily and praised the food. Mrs. Delaney smiled and said that having people enjoy her food did her heart good. Even Ben came down and had some eggs and bacon and commented on the coffee, how wonderful it tasted. Ben said that the last time he had tasted coffee that rich was in New Orleans. Ben took some food up to Joe and was glad to report that Joe ate some toast dipped in sweetened coffee.

So with an optimistic outlook that Joe was recovering, thanks to Hop Sing and his herbal concoctions and with the knowledge that he had done all he could for the time, Adam headed to town to see Piper. His heart was as clear as the morning sun. He saw wildflowers growing and was tempted to pick some for Piper but suddenly and with a sense of surprise, he remembered that she was married and it wouldn't look right. Adam wondered how he could have forgotten that Piper had a husband, but he had. He realized that he thought of Piper as the young women of seventeen whom he had married so many years ago. And he thought about how nice it would be to come home to Piper every evening and have her run to greet him and throw her arms around his neck and kiss his face, his closed eyes and his mouth. And thinking about it made him smile and then filled him with grief; it would never happen.


	22. Chapter 22

**TWENTY-TWO**

Adam had bathed early that morning and dressed in his better clothes to see Piper, even splashing on some Bay Rum. Percy was lounging on the settee when Adam came down the stairs.

"My, My," Percy had said. "You are a handsome devil, Adam. I take it this is all for Mrs. Jeffers. You never dress up for me." Percy stuck out his lower lip petulantly. "And I don't suppose that you'll take me with you to see her? I would so like to make her acquaintance again. I don't think I made the best impression on her the last time I had the pleasure."

Adam walked past Percy and went to put on his hat and to strap on his gun belt. "No," he said, "I won't take you." Percy sat up and sniffed the air, then turned to lean on the back of the settee to better watch Adam. "My goodness, you smell delicious-just like a French whore. How I do long for one-a French whore, that is. It has been my experience that they will do anything that's asked of them as long as one has enough money." Percy noticed that Adam was blatantly ignoring him. "Are you going to kiss the pretty Miss Piper? The amusing thing is that you could-right in front of her husband and he would never know. You could run your hands over her, crush her full breasts in your hands and unless she groaned in delight, her poor, blind husband would never know. Never. Just think of all you could do. Why you could lay with her and he wouldn't know unless he was feeling around trying to get somewhere. And what if his hands landed on you two as you rolled around-oh, wouldn't that be funny!"

"Shut up," Adam said. He wasn't going to let Percy sully his love for Piper.

"Did you read Chaucer" Percy asked. "Oh, of course you did. You are so well educated, aren't you, Adam? But if you had been raised in a boys' boarding school in England as I was, well, you would be educated in other ways, in other delights. It's amazing how a group of boys with growing urges manage to find satisfaction. But of course, you weren't raised that way. You are so decidedly masculine, Adam. But then that's what I like the most about you. I suppose that's what Mrs. Jeffers, the lovely, tasty little morsel that she is, likes about you as well."

Adam tried his best to ignore Percy; he wasn't going to fall into Percy's trap again. He just looked icily at Percy.

"Well, as I was saying, one of my favorite stories in The Canterbury Tales is "The Man of Law's Tale" with the old blind husband, January, and the young, lovely wife, May. Do you remember? In order to cuckold him, lascivious May takes her lover high in a pear tree in their garden and right in the middle of their eager copulation, the husband's sight is returned by godly powers and he is outraged by what he sees but May, clever and deceitful as most women are, claims that she was only doing the horrid deed to bring back January's eyesight and it worked! And instead of thanking her for her carnal sacrifice, he is ungrateful. But nevertheless, May manages to extricate herself from the adulterous situation. Perhaps you could use that as your precedent, Adam-should the two of you be caught in a compromising position. What do you say, Adam?"

"I say, you're an ass," and Adam walked out the front door but he could hear Percy laugh, delighted at succeeding in annoying him. But Adam was going to see Piper and he refused to let Percy ruin his mood. So he firmly closed the front door behind him and climbed into the hitched-up buckboard, took the reins and snapped them on the horse's back; he wasn't about to allow Percy to ruin his mood.

Piper answered the knock on her hotel room door and her heart rose when she saw Adam's face and his joyous smile. She had been pacing as she waited to hear his knock. In her mind she had been trying to phrase how she would tell him when he arrived-if he arrived, that they were going on to Sacramento; they had decided just that morning. But then there was another thing she had considered; what if he didn't visit today? What would she do? Leave without saying goodbye? Then Piper decided that if Adam didn't come to see her that day as he had promised, they would just leave. But then she countered, if his brother, Joe, was in a worse condition, perhaps he couldn't get to her so she decided they would stay. Perhaps she would ride out to the Ponderosa, hire someone to drive her. But Nash was watching their money since he was afraid that they would have to live the rest of their lives on what they now had after the sale of all their belongings and properties. So Piper whispered a little prayer and continued to pace.

"Good God, woman!" Nash called out from where he sat. "Stop that damnable pacing! All I can hear is the swishing of your skirts and petticoats and I can't bear it!" He stood up and turned to face her. Nash could tell where she was by the sounds of the rustling taffeta slips she wore. "You had said there was a set of rattan furniture on the hotel porch-take me there. You can see if your rescuing knight on his charger is coming then and perhaps you won't pace so much. You'll wear out this carpet and they'll charge us to replace it."

"I'm sorry, Nash," Piper said. She rarely became upset when Nash spoke to her in a rude manner; she tried to understand what he had endured and blamed that for his shortness of temper. Nash Jeffers had been starting a law career in Richmond, Virginia when the war started in earnest and he felt he should answer the call. Piper had begged him not to go. He quoted the poem by Lovelace:

"Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind,  
That from the nunnery  
Of thy chaste breast, and quiet mind,  
To war and arms I fly…  
I could not love thee, Dear, so much,  
Loved I not honor more."

"Don't quote poetry to me," Piper railed. "There are no great ideals here in the south to be defended."

"That just shows how little you know about the state of this country's affairs. Don't you see that we must defend our way of life?"

"All I see," Piper said to her husband, "is that men are dying and children are being left fatherless. Mothers are losing their sons and women are left widows. Let's leave here. Let's go out west-to California or Arizona-Texas even-someplace, anyplace where there's no war. I have no one here anymore but you." Piper's aunt had died and left Piper the house and that is where they lived.

Nash went to her and held her face in his hands. Nash Jeffers loved his wife; she was gracious, kind and beautiful and if she didn't love him as much as he loved her, he could accept that as long as she loved no one else. But he felt that he had to enlist, had to defend the Confederacy and it's customs as this was his home, his way of life and he agreed with the secession of Virginia from the Union.

But that was then and now that Nash could no longer do anything but live out the rest of his life in a black void, he often became frustrated and angry and since he now knew-after Piper's tearful confession that night before-that Piper and Adam had been married, he believed that they looked at each other with a longing and desire he couldn't see but could only feel. Nash didn't understand how he, even before his wife confirmed it, knew about his wife and Adam-perhaps it was the cadence of their conversations, the few he had witnessed, or the tone of their voices, the slight tremulous timbre of Piper's voice and the husky throatiness of Adam Cartwright's, but Nash knew there was something. And then there was Piper's anxiety waiting for Adam to show. That in itself was a giveaway.

So Piper was just about to open the door, Nash holding onto her elbow, when there was the knock and her heart practically exploded; it was Adam-he had shown as he had said.

"Adam, you're here. How is your brother?" Piper tried to cover the relief and happiness in her voice at seeing Adam.

"Much better, thank you." He pulled off his hat and then he noticed that Nash had his hand on Piper; they were going somewhere. "Is this a bad time? It looks as if you were going somewhere. I can come back-there are other things I can do in town."

"No," Nash said, "we were going to wait for you on the hotel's porch sitting under the hanging geraniums. At least I think they're geraniums. Either that or they are growing carrots in the hanging pots. Have you ever noticed that geraniums smell like carrots-the oddest odor. But you, Adam, you smell like an expensive cologne." Nash sniffed in the hair.

"A weak attempt to cover up the smell of horse and work, I suppose." Adam looked at Piper who dropped her eyes. Adam upset her too much, made her quiver with desire to touch him, to caress his cheek and feel his arms around her again.

"Please come in, Adam," Piper said and she and Nash backed up. "I'm sorry but, well, as you can see, it's not a suite or I'd ask you to sit down. Here." Piper moved away from Nash who dropped his hand and stood staring blankly but listening, his head cocked toward them.

Nash could tell by the sound that Piper had taken her small valise off the chair and cleared the clothing off it for Adam to sit. She was fussing to distract herself-and him. Nash was familiar with Piper's habits.

"That's all right," Adam said, still holding his hat. "The house is ready for the two of you to move in. It's actually quite a simple floor plan so I'm sure that you two will find it comfortable. Nash, you'll be able to move cleanly from room to room." Neither said anything so Adam continued. "You are staying, aren't you?"

"Yes," Nash said decidedly.

"Nash, we had decided to go on to Sacramento."

"Well, I've changed my mind. Don't argue with me, Piper. I've had enough arguments with you over the past few days to last me years. And do you know what our arguments have been about, Adam?"

"No. How would I know?"

"About you." Nash stood waiting, Adam caught Piper's eye and she sighed and then spoke.

"I told him about our marriage. I told him that it was annulled after our one night."

Adam sighed deeply. "I'm glad that you did." And Adam realized that he actually was glad that Piper had told her husband-they weren't just empty words. He felt as if a burden had been lifted. He didn't like to deceive people, not anyone, and he found that he loved Piper even more for telling her husband. It must have taken a great deal of courage for her to tell Nash about them but Adam wanted to know exactly what she had told her husband. Had she told him how much she loved Adam? Had she told Nash how they had lain together in Adam's narrow bed and consummated their love? About their dreams? Their hopes? What had she told him?

"She told me that you two were young and very much in love but that she no longer felt that way about you. Now, let me get it right-I do hate to misquote her. She said she cared for you, that was how you phrased it, wasn't it, Piper?"

"Yes," Piper said, almost in a whisper.

"She cared for you but that the emotion had changed and matured from the early excitement of first love."

Adam's heart fell; Piper no longer loved him. But then, he quickly resolved, it was probably better that way.

"But I think she's lying," Nash added.

"Nash. I told you everything. I'm your wife now and will remain a good wife. I told you that. Why not just let it drop and we can pack for Sacramento."

"I told you, Piper, we're staying! If Adam means nothing more to you than…how did you put it—let's see. You said that he represents the happiness of your youth when your foolish heart led you to marry him. And when I asked you if you still loved Adam, you said-now let me remember your exact words…oh, yes, you said that it didn't matter if you did or not." Nash turned back to Adam "I suppose, now that I reconsider, Piper didn't say that she didn't love you. She left it vague. Shall I ask her again, Adam, and see what she says in front of you, what she says to your face?"

"Stop, Nash. Don't be so cruel. Adam has done nothing to deserve this."

Nash turned on her. "Nothing except win your heart! I married you despite the fact that you didn't really love me. I could see then, remember? I could see it in your eyes and knew it every time we laid together as husband and wife. And now I know why you were always so absent from the act. There are none so blind as those who will not see."

"I had better go," Adam said. He saw how upset Piper was and that she was near to collapsing in tears.

"No, no, Adam," Nash said. "We're almost all packed. Piper just has to finish up with a few things. I want to stay here-and not to torment Piper or you as you may think. I love my wife. I'm sure that you can understand that, but since you love her as well…you do love her, don't you, Adam?"

"Why are you asking him that?" Piper said in a fury. "Leave him alone. Let him go."

"She jumps to your defense immediately," Nash said. "Isn't she wonderful in her love for you? Do you love her, Adam?"

"I want to see Piper happy and if that translates in your understanding as love then, yes, I do. But I want to see her happy in her marriage. It couldn't be with me so I want her happy with you. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes," Nash said, becoming calm again. "You are, surprisingly noble. I have a begrudging respect for you, Adam. I wish I could hate you but I can't; since you love Piper, I suppose that I can rely on you to see we're well taken care of. It will take us a short time to finish packing but if you don't mind waiting, we'll meet you on the hotel porch. You can wait under the geraniums."

Adam nodded to Piper and then put his hat back on. "I'll meet the two of you in the lobby. I have the buckboard waiting." And Adam left to go down to the lobby where he sat nervously holding his hat in his hands, turning it. And as he sat, the people coming and going through the hotel lobby, talking and laughing, he played the scene in his mind of what had occurred again and again and still wasn't clear on how he felt.

When Adam drove them up to the house, Piper exclaimed that she loved it. She moved around the yard, pointing out where she would plant roses as she had in Virginia and where she would put a small kitchen garden and just seeing her happy gave Adam such joy that he felt his spirits rise. He stood grinning while Nash stood beside the buckboard, his cane in hand, waiting.

"It's just marvelous, Adam. Perfect." She looked around and admired the view. To the west were the mountains and Piper described them for Nash, how they stood up as Titans. She then took him up the stairs of the porch and Nash counted each one. Then she placed the key in his hand and he unlocked the door. Adam was touched to see how gentle she was with her husband, especially since he could be so snide and sarcastic with her.

Adam followed behind them and stood in the doorway while Nash felt his way around the room, swinging his cane in an arc before him so that he could feel and would know where the furniture was. Then Piper, walking before him, talked him toward the kitchen and the back door. Adam trailed behind and watched as Piper opened the kitchen door which led out to a barn and an empty yard with a bare chicken coop. Piper clapped her hands in excitement.

"Chickens! We'll be able to have chickens. Oh, Nash, that means fresh eggs!" Then Piper saw Adam, silently watching. She flew over to him and took his hand. "Oh, thank you, Adam. Thank you. It's wonderful." She tiptoed and kissed his cheek. "You don't know how much this means to me."

"I'll come out tomorrow and fix up the chicken coop. We have some rolls of chicken wire and I'll bring some over. We didn't bring a cow yet-didn't know if you knew how to milk one but I can show you. It's easy enough as long as you're not afraid of one. And the barn still needs some repairing and while I have time, I'll do that too."

"Oh, Adam, you've done so much already. I can learn to do those things."

"You forget," Adam said, "I'm the landlord. My responsibility is to maintain the property and unless it's in a good condition to start with, how can it be maintained?" He smiled at her and he ached to be alone with her, to talk to her but Nash stood alertly, listening to them talk, his head slightly cocked as a dog's does when he's alerted to an odd sound.

"There's food in the pantry and in the root cellar. You have coffee, flour and bacon and there's some bread to start you off." Adam tried to remember everything he had wanted to tell her.

Then Nash spoke. "We have to pay you. Piper, pay the man for the first month. How much was it?"

"We'll start the first of the month-in three days. I should have it in better condition by then. Just enjoy the house. That's payment enough."

"No," Nash said, "We'll pay you. Pro-rate it. How much are you asking? Fifteen a month, isn't it? You do the math-figure it out, Adam. I hear tell that you're quite the one with numbers."

"It's all right," Adam said. "We'll start the first of the month. I had better leave now. I'll bring in your luggage." Adam walked back through the house and out the front to the buckboard. He was angry-furious. Adam had watched Nash ruin Piper's joy at having a home. He had watched, stood by helplessly while Piper's face changed from happiness to worry and anxiety. Nash always managed to knock her off-balance, to keep her from being happy. And each time Nash hurt her, Adam hated him. He knew it was childish and foolish but he couldn't help how he felt.

Adam turned with a bag in each hand and Piper was coming toward him. She reached for one of the bags but he refused to surrender it to her.

"I can carry one-I'm not helpless."

"I'll put them inside the door," Adam said. "I won't go in again until he invites me. It's his and your home." And Adam walked up the stairs and placed the bags just inside the door.

"He doesn't mean what he says," Piper explained. "I'll talk to him. It'll be all right but, Adam, he has pride too. He wants to pay his way as any man would. He sees you as pitying him-I know him well enough to see that. He also sees you as the better man-not just because you can see and he can't, but…because of me. Because I loved you first and still…I still care for you."

Adam stood silent, thinking and considering the situation. "All right. I'll let him pay then." Adam still stood for a moment. "Tell Nash that he needs to pay me a dollar fifty now or I'll throw both of you out. Is that what he wants to hear?" Adam turned to retrieve the rest of the bags. When he swung around with one small bag under his arm and a bag in each hand, Piper was standing teary-eyed. "I didn't mean that part, about throwing you out."

"I know. I just realized how much you were hurt. I never really thought of it, I suppose, I was so wrapped up in my own misery. But you were hurt so long ago, weren't you?"

Adam swallowed before he spoke. The idea of his receiving sympathy, that she understood his pain somehow only made it more acute and he wanted to hold her and tell her how he had been hurt, how he had suffered without her-but he didn't, he couldn't.

"Yes," he said as he passed her on his way up the porch. "I was hurt." They said nothing more to each other as he passed her returning to the buckboard, but Piper sadly watched Adam as he climbed up to the driver's seat and turned the horse toward the Ponderosa, his face, expressionless.


	23. Chapter 23

**TWENTY-THREE**

Joe seemed to be slowly recovering, Hop Sing's herbs worked to take down the fever and Doctor Martin cut away the dead flesh around Joe's wound, let it drain a few more days and then stitched the flesh together; the wound was healing. Adam had ridden to Chinatown to let Hop Sing know that Joe was better.

"That good," Hop Sing said to Adam as they stood in the shop. "Little Joe strong boy. Hop Sing glad he better, so much better."

"Won't you come back?" Adam asked. "We would really like it if you did and you know that new set of knives you were eyeing in the mercantilist? Well, they're yours. Just come back."

"Mistah Percy, he still live there?"

"Hop Sing, don't let him bother you. After all, you made him sick."

"What you mean, I make him sick? I just give him purge to make better disposed. Some people need good cleaning. He need to get rid of poison in body, in mind."

"Well, you just made him sick."

"Then he drink too much tea. Only supposed to drink one cup. He greedy-drink too much."

"Well, if you say it wasn't intentional but he thinks you tried to poison him."

"Bah! If I want poison, he be dead!"

"Well, that's what I told him. Now won't you come back home?"

"Him there, Hop Sing here. Not go back."

Adam examined Hop Sing's face. His mouth was firmly set and his brows were furrowed. "All right, then. Be a damn mule about the whole thing." And Adam turned and left. He had begged Hop Sing enough and wasn't going to do it again. They had Mrs. Delaney and she seemed to be doing well enough. Her cooking was tasty, even savory and there was more than enough of it. Hoss appeared to enjoy it although he missed Hop Sing as everyone else did. Besides, Mrs. Delaney was too quiet for Adam's tastes. To him, cooks should be loud, should enjoy cooking. They should talk or sing-or complain; there always seemed to be an innate good will in those who toiled in the kitchen, who enjoyed preparing dishes, but to Adam, Mrs. Delaney seemed secretive and he wasn't sure that he trusted her. And when he saw Percy in the kitchen one morning talking quietly to Mrs. Delany, his curiosity was piqued.

Percy claimed that he was asking Mrs. Delaney to make muffins for the next morning's breakfast but Adam didn't believe it. He had asked why Percy and Mrs. Delaney were hushed in conversation. Percy denied they were, stated that Adam just came in at an odd time. But Adam's suspicions were raised and so he paid particular attention to Mrs. Delaney. He even went through the kitchen one time when she was out but found nothing. He was considering going through her belongings in her room when he heard a hand on the kitchen door; it was Mrs. Delaney and she carried a wire basket of eggs.

"Can I help you with something?" she asked, quickly scanning the kitchen. Nothing seemed disturbed.

"No. I just came for glass of milk." Adam went to the larder.

"I haven't had time yet to milk the cow," Mrs. Delaney said. "Come back in about an hour and there'll be a fresh pail."

Adam gave a cursory grin and nodded his head and then left. Mrs. Delaney looked after him; she was wary of Adam Cartwright. He paid too much attention to the workings of the household and she feared him. In her line of work, she had learned to read men-a whore had to know who was deadly and who wasn't before they were alone in her room. And she read Adam as a man who could only be pushed so far and then he would turn with a vengeance and destroy whomever or whatever threatened those he loved. And she felt that he saw her as a threat. A shiver ran through her and she reconsidered if what she was doing was worth the money. Then she put the egg basket on the counter. She had baking to do so she opened the tin of lard and pulled out the flour and cleared off the kitchen table to begin to make cookies.

Adam was fixing up the chicken house at the Jefferses; he had a rooster and two hens in cages just waiting to inhabit their new home. Hoss was sprucing up the barn although he had begun to complain of not feeling well. He and Joe seemed to have the same symptoms, a slight dyspepsia and general malaise but Hoss wouldn't see the doctor. He said that he might just stop by Hop Sing's uncle's herb shop. It hadn't seemed as if it was only a week since Hop Sing had left them and Hoss felt personally offended that Hop Sing would leave him in particular since Hop Sing had raised him, taken care of him for as far back as he could remember. It was as if a parent had walked out on him and Hoss felt hurt, abandoned and angry. Adam hoped that if Hoss went to see him that he could then convince Hop Sing to return, that Hop Sing's love for Hoss would cause him to capitulate. But the bandy-legged China man could be stubborn and intractable.

Piper brought out a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses and stood by Adam.

"Are you thirsty, Adam? I made some lemonade for you and Hoss."

"I'm not very thirsty, thank you, but I'm sure that Hoss would like some. I just had some water and that'll hold me." Adam went back to twisting the ends of the chicken wire together with a small pair of pliers to keep them in place and away from the chickens. Otherwise, they would injure themselves on the rough, sharp points. Even Adam wore leather work gloves to protecet his hands.

"The chicken house looks nice." Piper hoped to start up a conversation, to open up some communication. Adam had been cold to her from the time he arrived that morning. Not unfriendly, just distant and polite. But Adam gave her a small smile and nodded his thanks. "How's your brother, Joe? He should be getting much better by now."

"He is, thank you. Hoss is in the barn. He should want some lemonade."

"I'll see to him then." Piper started to walk away but turned back. "Why are you so angry with me, Adam?"

"I'm not angry, Piper, at least not with you." He stood up and took a deep breath. "I've just done a lot of thinking and I realize how foolish I was."

"Because you once married me?"

"No, not at all." Adam stood up to stretch his back. "I had such expectations when I was young. Do you remember, Piper? We both did but life isn't what I expected it to be. Here I am, a lonely bachelor-not what I had expected. And I always wondered why I never could take the step of marrying again. I wasn't deeply in love with any woman but that wasn't it. I think that people can grow to love each other after going through life with them but…it was that I always felt that I'd find you again. I didn't want to have a wife and maybe children when you showed up-and I always hoped that you would. I put off my life all this time waiting for you and for what? To see you living so close to me that I can be here next to you in twenty minutes travel time only to see you married to someone else. It's funny, isn't it? I mean laughable-truly laughable. The joke's on me. A huge cosmic joke and I'm the patsy, the butt of the joke."

Piper put down the tray holding the pitcher and glasses on the stump used for chopping kindling. "I don't think it's laughable and I don't think it's a joke. If it helps you any, if it might make things better for you to despise me, then know this-I'm glad that you're not married. That's how evil I am. If I were a good person, I would wish you happiness, would want to see you with a wife you love and who loves you and with children who clamber on your lap for hugs and kisses. But I know how I would suffer seeing that. See how selfish and evil I am? Selfish. Damned and selfish."

And Adam knew that he couldn't despise her, he loved her even more now that she had bared her soul and so he reached for her and pulled her to him and kissed her. She twined her arms around his neck and returned his passion. She was no longer a girl with her first love. Piper was a mature woman whose body ached for Adam as he did for her and they fell into their embrace with the passion that long-separated lovers have. And except for the fear that they would be found out, Adam would have taken her in the dirt and she would have allowed it, longed for it, but it couldn't be so. And still holding on to one another until the last possible moment, they separated and Piper took the tray and hurried to the barn while Adam watched her as she turned once to look at him before she went inside.

"So what now?" Adam said to himself. "What mess have you fallen into? Damn it all to hell."


	24. Chapter 24

_To anyone who is reading, I apologize for the length of some of these chapters-some of them are as long as a short story, but I'm almost through. Girl Scout's honor._

**TWENTY-FOUR**

Joe had a setback. One day, he seemed to be on his sure way to recovery and then the next, he began running a low-grade fever. Not only that, but he began to vomit weakly and Adam thought it had a particularly foul smell. Ben was worried to distraction; Hoss was ill as well. He complained of a pain in his bowels and Adam just told him that he needed to eat less but then Hoss developed a bloody flux and Adam emptied his chamber pot because Hoss couldn't drag himself to the outhouse anymore. He groaned and rocked on his bed, sweating. The only thing that Adam knew that would cause such symptoms was cholera but Hoss didn't have the other symptoms of the disease. Besides, if he had it, why didn't Adam or their father-or Percy, who seemed to be bothered by nothing? Percy actually seemed to be happier and healthier than Adam had ever seen him.

Now that Percy had found his way to Virginia City, he spent most of his time there from late afternoon until early morning. Then he would sleep until noon or later. Adam complained, wanted to drag Percy out of his bed and toss him down the stairs and tell him to earn his keep but Ben said no.

"Pa, he does nothing around here but aggravate me and sleep. If he's a true Cartwright, if he wants to stay, then he should pull his weight. Granted, that's not much even if he were completely wet, but he should work around here."

"Adam," Ben had said, distressed, "can't this wait until some other time? I really can't deal with all this."

Adam knew that his father was worried but the hands would be home soon and then there would be so many things to start doing that Adam felt the situation needed to be settled and the sooner, the better. "All right, Pa. All right. But as soon as Joe is better, we need to take care of this Percy business."

But what Adam didn't know was that Percy had accrued debts at the poker table and asked Ben for money and Ben was too distracted to complain so he told Percy where the key was to the strongbox and Percy helped himself. Adam discovered the missing money when he went to pay Thad and the other two hands and there was little money left; he couldn't cover their pay. Adam had to go into the safe to make up the difference.

So Adam waited up until Percy came in about three in the morning. As soon as Percy stepped into the house, Adam confronted him.

"What the hell have you been doing?"

"Why I was playing poker," Percy said, trying to keep his composure. "And how nice of you to wait up for me, big brother. Were you worried?"

"Go to hell. How much did you lose?"

Percy straightened up his jacket. "Actually, tonight I won."

"Good. Then you can replace the money from the strong box to which, for your information, I now have the key."

"Well, I could replace it if the person from whom I won it had the money but it seems that he doesn't."

"How very convenient for you," Adam said. "And 'from whom' did you win this great amount?"

"Some poor cowboy." Percy took off his jacket. "Really, Adam, aren't you the least bit sleepy? I. myself am worn out. If I don't get my rest, I'll become as ill as Joe and Hoss and then Daddy would have three of us to concern him and he is in such bad health himself. Why he barely eats. If he continues this way, he'll end up taking to his bed as well." Percy started up the stairs. "Just think, Adam, it may come down to just you and me. Perhaps we will be able to divide the Ponderosa and all its holdings between only the two of us. My, my-just think of it. Makes my mouth water. Oh, and I rode past your…our, new tenants', home on my way to town. It's beginning to shape up nicely. Mrs. Jeffers was out working in a garden, planting flowers. She had on the loveliest bonnet-it framed her sweet face. And to think of her laying with that scarred-up creature who is her husband."

"When did you see him?" Adam couldn't recall Percy having met Nash Jeffers.

"Did I neglect to tell you? I went over with a box of cookies that Mrs. Delaney made at my request. Mr. Jeffers was on the porch, just sitting. Pathetic actually. Then she came out. She is lovely. Like a Raphaelite angel. Every time I see her, she just becomes lovelier and lovelier. I will have to stop by and see them again-both of them-much more often."

"Stay away from them."

"But I am the landlord along with you. I must protect my interests and see that they're maintaining the property. I have the right to stop by."

"You have no rights when it comes to the Jefferses. Stay away. I'm not going to tell you again."

Percy paused. He decided not to push Adam tonight. At least not anymore then he already had. "Very well. I suppose that being a landlord is below me. You can handle that aspect of the interests. Contact with lucre is so tainting."

"You don't seem to think so when it comes to robbing the strongbox."

And Percy laughed as he continued up the stairs. "Hardly robbing, Adam, when it's mine by birthright. But I suppose you're correct-as you always are. Money is lovely when it's used to pursue pleasure-it doesn't seem quite so bad then. In that regard," Percy said as he stopped on the landing, "I'm a hypocrite like you. We both will pay for what we want-even pay with our souls if necessary, won't we?"

Adam didn't ask Percy what he meant by his pointed comment. He didn't want Percy to think he was interested but Adam knew he was hypocritical in many aspects of his life but most of all, when it came to Piper and Nash. He helped them move onto the property for his own sake, to keep her close. He had kissed Piper and in his heart wished Nash dead and yet, he smiled to the man's face. Percy just grinned and went on his way to his room.

Percy lit the lamp in his room and began to undress. He stood in front of the mirror and admired himself. He decided that tomorrow he would go into Virginia City for a haircut and to have his moustache trimmed. And when Percy pulled the covers up, he grinned to himself and then he giggled in self-satisfaction. Poor, poor, Adam, he thought to himself. The others may die of physical stress but Adam shall die of a broken heart brought about by guilt. That, Percy had ensured at that night's poker game. Percy knew enough about Adam to know that he would have made a perfect knight in King Arthur's day-perhaps even a Sir Lancelot, who was ill-made enough to suffer in his adulterous love with Queen Guinevere and to never take pleasure in it but have his love for her a constant source of pain and agony until it broke him. Yes, Percy thought, I shall break him and then Adam shall leave-shall go away never to return and then the Ponderosa will be mine.

Percy thought back to his meeting with Nash and Piper Jeffers earlier that day. He had tried to make pleasant conversation with Nash but it appeared that for some reason, Nash took a dislike to him. Perhaps it was because he had used Adam's name in introducing himself, saying that Adam had thought that he should go and introduce himself since he was the newest member of the family unless of course, someone else popped up at the Ponderosa claiming, "Daddy!" Percy also said that he came bearing gifts and Nash had quoted Virgil, "Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts." And Percy had laughed-not truly amused-and then Piper had walked out onto the porch.

"How nice to see you again, Mrs. Jeffers," Percy said, bowing and reaching out for her hand. Piper hesitated and then put out her hand and Percy kissed it. Piper wiped it on the back of her skirt. Percy noticed but said nothing. "I brought a small gift of homemade cookies. I imagine that you are so busy that you haven't had the time to make a sweet treat." He gave Piper his most endearing smile.

"Why thank you, Mr….."

"It's Cartwright."

"Of course." Piper just stood and no one said anything. Nash tilted his head upward.

"Well, I suppose I should go…" Percy said but made no effort to leave.

"Piper," Nash said, "aren't you going to offer our visitor anything? We can't have him think that we are ungrateful for his gift."

"It's not necessary. I am on my way to Virginia City but I would like a glass of water if it's not putting out anyone."

"Why we can do better than that. Piper, don't we have coffee on the stove? Invite Mr. Cartwright in and offer him some."

"Would you like some coffee?" Piper's face was cold and so was her voice. She did not like this man.

"Why thank you. Yes I would."

"Nash, will you join us?"

"No, I am enjoying the morning air. In a bit the sun will be on my face and I don't want to miss it. Go ahead, Piper, and play mistress of your grand home that Adam Cartwright has deigned to let us rent and entertain the wealthy landowner. He's not Adam but he will do, don't you agree?"

Piper said nothing, just asked Percy to follow her and she led him to the kitchen where he sat down at the small table, pulling off his gloves and placing them on the table alongside his hat which he had removed. Piper poured him a cup of coffee and placed it before him.

"What do you take in your coffee? I now have cream to offer."

"Actually, I prefer tea but I will take sugar and cream if you don't mind." Piper opened the larder and took out a small cream pitcher and a bowl of sugar loaves and placed them in front of Percy along with a spoon. She knew that she should prepare his coffee for him but she didn't want to. "Won't you join me?"

Piper sat down across from him. "Would you like some of the cookies that you brought?"

"No, thank you, this is fine." Percy sipped the coffee; he would never get used to it. Tea had such a richness compared to coffee, a subtle mix of flavors that outshone coffee every time. "Do you like tea?" Percy wanted to start a conversation.

"I like chamomile tea. I used to drink it every evening-it helps me sleep."

"Ah, yes. There is a tea for whatever ailment you may have. I do think that if Adam drank more tea, he wouldn't be so choleric. Oh, I don't mean to insinuate that he has cholera!" Percy had noticed that at the mention of "Adam" and "choleric," Piper sat up straighter.

"He's not ill, is he?" Piper felt a panic surge through her.

"Oh, no, no-that is unless you count his being sick at heart."

"Sick at heart?"

"Yes. He pines for you, I fear. I have tried to get him to confide in me-you know a friend's or brother's sincere efforts to help shouldn't be eschewed. But Adam is hard as granite-he won't allow anyone in to know his private thoughts but I have picked up on certain things that he has said and I can only infer that he-well, he loves you. If anything should happen to you, or your great beauty-and you are beautiful if I may be so forward as to say so-well, I'm afraid that Adam would be lost." Percy tried to look sympathetic.

"That's nonsense," Piper added. "I am a married woman and Adam has always been a complete and proper gentleman."

Then Percy grinned; he knew by Piper's voice and her attempt to control her face that Adam hadn't been a complete gentleman and Percy only wondered how far Adam's transgression had gone. Had the two kissed? Had Adam taken Piper on the couch or in the barn or against the back wall of the house? But it really didn't matter as long as Adam still loved Piper. Percy had needed confirmation and now he had it.

"Well, thank you for the coffee and the conversation," Percy said standing up and sweeping up his gloves and hat, "but I must be on my way."

Piper stood then. "Well, if you must go…" She walked him out and when they reached the porch, Nash was eating cookies.

"So glad that you like the pastries," Percy said. "You must enjoy some, Mrs. Jeffers." And then Percy put on his hat and slipped on his gloves and rode off, tipping his hat to Piper one more time as she stood on the porch.

"I don't care for him," Piper said to her husband. "I don't care for him at all."

And as Percy lay in bed, he smiled at his plans and how exacting of vengeance they were-so poetic. Ben would live; that Percy had decided. His mother had told him to wreak vengeance against the great Ben Cartwright and Percy would. But it wouldn't be swift and merciful. No, no, not for what Ben Cartwright had done to his mother and by extension to him. Ben's suffering would be slow and agonizingly painful and eat away at him like some disease, destroying him until all that would be left of the great man was an empty shell-his two sons dead, his eldest gone or insane with grief and never to return. And then Percy would be his only progeny left and Ben would be a doddering old man-so easily led, an afghan over his lap, drooling down his chin. The picture delighted Percy. He grinned to himself, hugging himself the way a girl does when she envisions herself in the grandness of her wedding gown. Then Percy sighed deeply, and eventually fell asleep, smiling.

Early the next morning, Adam sat alone on the settee sipping coffee. He had declined breakfast and so had Ben so Adam had taken a cup up to his father.

"You need to eat, Pa." Adam was shocked at his father's appearance. Ben Cartwright had dropped about ten pounds in a mere two weeks. His face was gaunt and he was often confused. Adam chalked it up to sleep deprivation; Ben went from one ill son to the other, wiping them down and offering them water. Adam told him that he would watch one while his father watched the other but Ben said no. Someone needed to take care of the ranching responsibilities and he couldn't trust Percy to do it. And then Ben grabbed Adam's arm and said with a certain desperation that Adam must be certain that Percy did not take over the ranch, for Adam to make certain of it.

And that was what Adam was determined to do. So Adam sat sipping his coffee, mulling the situation over and over when there was a knock at the front door. Adam hoped it was Paul Martin; Adam had left a message at his office asking for the doctor to stop by the Ponderosa, but when he opened it, Hop Sing stood there.

"I come in?" Hop Sing asked.

"Yes, of course," Adam said. Mrs. Delaney came out of the kitchen to answer the door and saw the Chinese man.

"It's all right, Mrs. Delaney. It's a long-lost member of the family." Mrs. Delaney nodded and went back to the kitchen.

"Hop Sing hear Little Joe sick again and Mistah Hoss, he very sick."

Adam had no idea how Hop Sing knew. Who had told him about Joe and Hoss' worsening conditions, he didn't know but he didn't question it. Hop Sing always knew what was going on with his "family."

"They're upstairs," Adam said. "Pa is just about worn out."

"Hop Sing stay until they better. That woman, who she?"

"She's the new cook."

"Humph!" Hop Sing said. "That why they sick. Only Hop Sing can cook right for Cartwrights. You tell her go. You tell her leave now!" And Hop Sing went up the stairs and Adam smiled as he heard the relief and delight in his father's voice, happy to see Hop Sing again.

Adam went back to his coffee. It tasted better now as the wave of relief flooded him. Hop Sing was here. Now he could give that responsibility over to him and Adam could focus more on business. Adam went to the sideboard to refill his cup when Percy came slowly down the stairs, adjusting his high collar over his fitted jacket.

"Up early, aren't you?" Adam asked.

"Yes, I suppose I am but I have to collect a debt in town. And besides, what is it that your American hero said? 'Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.' Franklin, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Adam answered.

"Hopefully, rising this early will bring me wealth. But didn't this Franklin also warn people to avoid venery? Do you follow that precept, Adam?"

Adam chose to ignore his comment on venery and continued. "What debt are you talking about that you need to collect? The poker debt?"

"Yes. You are ever so astute. My debtor is to have exactly what I require today. I shall be gone a few hours." Percy walked over to the desk and then turned to Adam. "May I have some money, older brother? I would like to have breakfast in town. Sadly, since you now hold the key to my heart-the strongbox, I have to ask you."

Adam walked over to the desk, unlocked the strongbox and pulled out a few bills, counted out fifty dollars and handed them to Percy.

"That's all?" Percy held the bills in his hand, obviously disappointed.

"You're lucky that I'm giving you any at all. That's to last a week."

"A week! I can't survive on a mere fifty a week!"

Adam shrugged and locked the box and put it back in the desk, shutting the drawer with a slam for impact. "Learn to live within your means," Adam said.

Percy quickly recovered from his disappointment. "Well, I suppose something is better than nothing." Percy tucked the bills in his wallet and then replaced it in his inside jacket pocket. "You know, I asked Father for the combination to the safe but he denied me. Me! But I think that dear Daddy will trust me with it soon. My guess is that it holds all the documents related to the Ponderosa holdings and money-lots and lots of money. And might I guess that it holds jewelry as well?" Percy picked up the gold-framed picture of Marie. "Now this lovely parure that Joseph's mother is wearing-it must be somewhere so I deduce that it is either in this vault or the Virginia City bank's vault." Percy placed the picture back on the desk. "I'll find out eventually."

Adam watched Percy leave. With Percy gone and Hop Sing here, things felt almost normal. Mrs. Delaney came out from the kitchen.

"Mr. Cartwright, you want beef tonight or pork?"

Adam thought. "Neither. And I need to tell you that you are no longer needed. Thank you for your services but please pack up your belongings. I'll ask Thad, one of the hands to drive you into town. You don't need to come back."

"But you weren't the one to hire me. Mr. Percy did."

"That's true but I'm the one who's firing you. Be ready to leave in a half hour."

Mrs. Delaney sighed as Adam walked out of the house. Mr. Percy would try not to pay her since she hadn't finished in her task but then, she could blackmail him. He'd pay just to shut her up. And as she went to her room behind the kitchen to pack up, she thought that she would have to go back to work tonight taking a few drunken, smelly cowboys up to her room in the brothel and if they passed out, well, she would roll them and make even more money. She would manage until Mr. Percy came by to see her-or she would come to see him.

Adam arranged for Thad to take Mrs. Delaney to town and Adam, who felt invigorated with all the responsibilities he had been able to shed now that Hop Sing was back, decided to visit Piper. He was bothered by how they had left things. So Adam saddled his horse and rode out to the house. He didn't know how he would be received, if Piper had told Nash about their kiss or not. But Adam knew that it had been more than a kiss-it had been a renewal of their deep passion and desire for one another, an acknowledgement that they weren't young and optimistic and that they both knew of the consequences of their actions. Now they had to decide if the possible ramifications of their love and desire for one another was worth the risk. Maybe as soon as he rode up, Nash would begin to blindly fire in his direction. And Adam wondered if he would shoot a blind man even if the man had a 12 gauge shotgun aimed at him. He hoped that he would never have to find out.


	25. Chapter 25

**TWENTY-FIVE**

Percy walked into the Silver Dollar saloon and glanced around. There, sitting in the corner nursing a beer was the man who owed him money-hundreds of dollars. Percy walked over and the man looked up. He didn't know why he was afraid of the thin, short Englishman who didn't even carry a gun, but he was. The man was evil and Orton wished he hadn't lost so much money to him. Orton had started the game with no intention of losing more than the thirty-five dollars which was all he had but somehow, this Percy Cartwright had managed to maneuver him to keep playing and then Cartwright extended him credit, let him win a few hands and then he lost again and before Orton knew it, he had over three hundred dollars in losses. Everyone else had long since left the game and Percy asked for the money.

"I ain't got it," Orton said, "but I'll get it for you."

"When?" Percy asked, pulling out one of his cigarettes and lighting up. He blew the smoke toward Orton who waved it aside. The bartender was drying glasses and looked at the two men. He rarely had customers this early and there were only two saloon girls sitting in a corner, talking and drinking coffee.

"Give me a few days. I got to think of a way to get that much money."

"I don't have a few days. My family is very powerful in this area and Daddy won't take too kindly to my playing with such a deadbeat. When can you pay?"

"I told you, I need a few days." Orton's hand rested on his holster. If he had to shoot this man, he would but he had only killed one man before in his life and that had been an accident. Usually, as big as Orton was, he didn't have to shoot- he could just beat someone into submission and he enjoyed using his fists; they had never failed him.

"I have a proposition where you can pay me back by performing a small favor for me. I'm certain that you can handle it." Percy continued to draw on the cigarette that smelled a bit like cherries.

"What do I have to do?" Orton looked askance at the man; he was seeming to become excited at the prospect of the proposition being accepted. The Englishman's face was now flushed and he sat forward, dropping the rest of the cigarette to the floor and stepping on it.

"Beat a woman."

Orton sat back, unsure of this. It wasn't what he had expected.

"Don't tell me that you've never beat a woman!" Percy said in mock surprise. "I'm sure that you have."

"I've beat a woman before-more'n one, but who's this woman you want me to beat up? She someone who turned you down? Cause if it is-well, can't say as how I blame 'er and she don't deserve no beating for that."

"No," Percy said, "and if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your opinions to yourself. You owe me and I'll have the constable of this city arrest you for an outstanding gambling debt. As they say in these parts, 'We don't cotton to deadbeats.' So listen carefully: She is a woman who needs to be beaten and beaten badly. I also want her disfigured."

"Disfigured? What d'you mean? You want some teeth knocked out? Her nose broken?"

"I want her nose cut off, her face slashed, her lips sliced off, her tongue cut out. I want her so horrible that when you're finished, no man would be able to bear looking at her. I want her to be a walking horror, for small children to scream and run when they see her, for women to faint when they catch a glance at her, and for all men to shun her. And as a bonus, you can take her before you slash her up. She's beautiful and you'll enjoy having her. Imagine it—you'll be the last man to enjoy her beauty." Percy's breath came in short, fast pants. He would be there to watch and just thinking about what Orton would do to Piper Jeffers excited him and aroused him. And then there was Adam. Oh, how Adam would cry and grieve over the loss of his beautiful love, Piper, his youthful wife who had been so achingly beautiful. This was going to be even greater than Percy had originally envisioned.

"She live alone?" Orton asked.

"No, but this is even more wonderful-her husband is blind and they live on a piece of property that is miles from Virginia City." Percy giggled. "And if my plan works, well, they will both be indisposed and unable to defend themselves. Can you imagine anything better? He's blind, probably dead in a day or two and she'll be horrid-looking and mute. She'll be shunned by society. See, there is justice in the world. I'll take my revenge against all those who tried to intimidate me, to ruin me." Percy took a deep breath; he noticed that Orton was looking at him oddly. "To sweeten the pot, I'll give you a hundred dollars and you can take off for wherever your please. We will be even-you and I and you'll owe me nothing more. Is it a deal?"

Orton sat for a few moments in thought, weighing the odds of his being caught. "Even if her tongue's cut out, she could still write," Orton said. "She could describe me and I been hanging around Virginia City for the past few days. Someone would recognize me from what she could write. I could cut off her hands."

"No," Percy said, thinking, "she'd bleed to death and I want her alive." Percy hadn't considered Piper's writing who had hurt her and she would be sure to mention that he had watched. "Just chop off her thumbs; she couldn't very well hold a pen and write our descriptions then. Eventually maybe she would be able to handle a pen and crudely write but we'd both be long gone by then-or it wouldn't matter."

Orton had spent time in jail before and didn't want to return, and he had slapped around more than one woman but he had never slashed up a woman and didn't know that he could, especially a pretty one. He didn't really like this. "How come you don't do this yourself?" Orton asked Percy.

"I just prefer not to."

"I think that you just like to watch someone else do the dirty work for you. You ain't got the guts." Orton had met men like this young man before. He didn't understand them but they were always ready to hire someone to do their ugly business. But as long as the money was enough, he'd do it. And thinking about enjoying a woman began to give him the itch. That she would probably fight him only made the prospect more exciting. "But I'll do it. Now let's get this straight. I do what you want when it comes to this woman. I take her, cut her up good and then you'll give me another hundred and I get to leave-that it?"

"That's it. Oh, except that I get to watch. I want to see and hear her...I hope she screams."

"I'll make sure she does if that's what you want."

'Yes, yes, that's what I want. I want to hear her scream hopelessly in pain."

"When and where?" Orton was planning ahead. Maybe he could rob Percy as well. What could Percy do? He couldn't very well finger Orton as the perpetrator without revealing his own guilt in the matter.

"In about two hours; we'll meet in front of the bank across from The Silver Dollar. Then I'll leave first and five minutes later, you leave following me, but from a safe distance so that no one will connect us. I'll lead to the house where the people are and we'll pull up a way. Then, when the time is right, you'll do it. Just knock on the door and when she answers, shove her back and I'll follow behind you. Then you can take your time enjoying her before you do…the other things."

"Mr. Cartwright?" A woman's voice was behind him and Percy turned. It was Mrs. Delaney.

Percy stood up and smiled gently. "Orton, don't you know to stand in the presence of a lady?"

"She ain't no lady. I know where she works."

"For the past few days, she's been working for me. Now stand up and offer her a seat."

Orton begrudgingly stood up and pulled out a chair for her.

"And why are you here and not at the Ponderosa? Shouldn't you be washing up their breakfast dishes by now?" Percy tried to seem calm but he was nervous; this was not how things were planned.

"I got fired," she answered. "That Chinaman came back and Adam Cartwright fired me. Told me to pack and leave. I ain't never got my money you promised."

"Are they dead?"

"No. I told you, I got fired. It would've only taken another day or two. Here." Mrs. Delaney handed a brown paper packet to Percy. "You finish it up but I want my money."

"Hell, Cartwright, you get someone to do all your dirty work, don't you?" Orton sat back, a wide grin on his face.

Percy pointed at Orton. "You shut your mouth and fulfill your bargain." Then he turned back to the woman. "I will pay you but not the amount I promised because you haven't completed the job."

"You'll pay me the full amount or I'll go straight to the Cartwrights and tell them what you 'forced' me to do. I'll say that you were blackmailing me-they'll believe me. So you need to pay me-in full-or I'll be at the Ponderosa tomorrow and then to the sheriff's next."

Percy sighed. "I suppose that I have no choice. All Right, Mrs. Delaney. I'll have to get cash from the bank. It hasn't opened yet. You'll get your money in a few hours. Now go back to your place of business, and I'll have it delivered."

Mrs. Delaney smiled, thanked Percy and then sashayed out. She was pleased with herself; her plan to extort money from Percy Cartwright had worked.

"Kill her," Percy said as he tucked the brown paper packet in his pocket. "Follow her and kill her. With your big hands you can strangle her. No one will be overly concerned with the death of a whore. I'll pay you an extra two hundred."

"Okay, but one thing," Orton added, leaning in.

"What?" Percy's mind raced trying to think of what he may have forgotten.

"You give me an extra hundred before I go after that whore. It's daylight, you know." Orton breathed heavily, waiting.

"Fine," Percy said. "Fine." Fortunately he had more money on him than the mere fifty dollars that Adam had given him from the strongbox. He had hoped to leave before Orton claimed his money but now he saw that he would have to hand it over. He sighed. "I'll give you the money before you kill her-here." Percy gave him the fifty dollars he had received from Adam and then peeled off fifty more. "Now leave and then come back in an hour and we'll continue as we already discussed."

Orton pushed his chair back, picked up his beer mug and drained it. Then he walked away, thinking of how he was going to spend his money after the job. And if he did his job on Mrs. Jeffers properly and with enough enthusiasm, he wouldn't even have to spend any of it on a whore tonight, being able to take out his sexual appetite on Mrs. Jeffers; she had better be as pretty as that snake, Cartwright, had said.

Percy sat back and steepled his fingers, grinning to himself. This would be the day that he would destroy Adam. Adam who thought he was so clever. Percy would show him who the cleverest Cartwright was. One of the saloon girls came over to him now that he was sitting alone. Something had told her that he and the man were in a private conversation and for her not to interrupt.

"Can I get you something?" the girl asked.

"No, no. I'm off for breakfast. But, you lovely thing-here." Percy reached in his pocket and pulled out a coin which he dropped down the woman's cleavage.

"Thanks," she said and walked away.

Percy laughed and went out to find a decent restaurant that would serve his food as he liked it.


	26. Chapter 26

**This is the penultimate chapter. Thanks to those who have stuck with this.**

**TWENTY-SIX**

Adam rode up to the Jefferses' house. It was a bright clear day and there was still a chill in the air. Adam knew that spring was here; although the weather would be cool, even cold in the morning it would warm up nicely and then again, in the evening, temperatures would drop. So Adam dismounted and tied his horse to the hitching post and walked up the few stairs. The front door was a half door, a Dutch door, and the top half was open so he called in. "Nash? Piper?"

Piper came out of the kitchen and when she saw Adam, she smiled and sighed deeply; he soothed her soul and she needed him and his strength. "Adam, come in." Adam reached inside and turned the knob on the bottom half of the door and let himself in. "I was just in the kitchen. I made a fresh pot of coffee. Would you like some?"

"That would be nice." Adam knew that Piper was either uncomfortable or unsure of him after the kiss-she kept dropping her eyes whenever he would meet hers. So he followed her into the kitchen and sat his hat on the kitchen table, and pulled back one of the chairs. "Piper, we need to paint these." He examined how the white paint was chipped in some places. "I'll come over and sand them down. What about yellow? They'd brighten up the room. What do you think of yellow?"

Piper brought two cups balanced on two saucers and then placed one set in front of each of them. She placed the coffee pot on a pad and then, holding a folded dishtowel, she poured coffee for them.

"I think yellow would be lovely. I've been working on that stove, using some blackening and look at my hands?" She spread out her hands to show Adam how the blackening had stained them, particularly around the nails. "I hadn't thought of gloves-I should have. I'm slowly turning into a pioneer woman, aren't I?" Adam didn't respond. "Do you like cream, Adam? Here." She handed him the small pitcher that was shaped like cow, the open mouth being the spout, the curled tail, the handle, but he declined. "The big tin of cream you brought over has made drinking coffee feel almost like a luxury. I hope that you're family isn't depriving itself in order for you to give me some cream."

Adam just smiled and poured some cream in his coffee. "May I have some sugar-if it's…"

"Oh, of course." Piper stood up and went to the counter where she brought back a small sugar jar and a spoon. "What an awful hostess I am. Would you like some cookies? Your…brother, Percy…he came by yesterday and brought us some sugar cookies. Nash said they were delicious and ate quite a few. Would you like some? They're right here."

"No, no, thank you. I just came by to talk to you. I was hoping that I could speak to you alone." He paused to sip his coffee and Piper sat back. "Where's Nash?"

"He's lying down upstairs. He doesn't feel well."

"Anything serious?"

"Oh, I don't think so. He's just feeling a bit out of sorts, that's all." Piper stared into her coffee cup. They sat in silence. "I didn't tell Nash that we kissed-I feel deceitful about it but I didn't want to tell him. I just promised myself that it would never happen again." She looked over at Adam. "It won't, I won't let myself. It won't happen again, Adam."

"I know that. Piper, I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about things, about us and I've come to realize that Nash is a far better man that I am. I feel like some damnable cur lusting after you, after his wife, when I can't measure up to him in any way."

"What do you mean? What's all this about measuring up. I don't understand this type of talk."

"Nash sacrificed himself for what he believed in. I haven't. I talk a good talk about how the Union is correct, how necessary it is to keep to keep the country united and not allow secession, to abolish slavery, to reestablish a solid currency but what do I do about it? Nothing? I've done nothing. Not only that, but by not making certain where our beef is being sent, what army is being fed by Ponderosa beef, I may even be culpable in continuing the war."

"Perhaps Nash and I ate some Ponderosa beef and it helped us? My friends whose husbands were in the Confederate Army-are you saying that you wouldn't want them fed, their children fed? That they should starve? They're humans, as human as I am. You say you love me but what if I were still in Virginia and all I had to eat were dried beans and not much of it at that? How would you feel if Union soldiers were quartered in my home and amused themselves by using me for their pleasure? Have you thought of those things, Adam?"

"No, but, Piper... if I didn't know you, if I hadn't admired your father so much-Piper, I need to back up how I feel about this war. I realize that people are going to die and many of them innocent people. I know that whole fields in the south are being razed, homes and cities burned and that may seem cruel but war is cruel. There's always collateral damage-people are going to die."

"I don't want to hear this," Piper said, standing up and hugging herself around her waist. "What are you saying? Are you saying that you're going to go off and join the war?"

"I've been thinking of it for a while and now, well, I…"

Piper looked at him, her face ashen. "No. Don't say that, Adam. Don't even think it."

Adam stood up and hurried around the table and held Piper by her upper arms. She looked as if she would faint. Even her lips had lost color. "Sit down." Adam had her sit back down on the kitchen chair. He went to the sink and pumped water to fill a glass for her. "Here," he said, putting the glass in her hands, "drink this." He dropped on one knee beside her.

Piper took a sip of the water. It was cool and soothing. "Please, Adam, if you care for me at all, don't go. If you love your family, don't go. If you respect the sanctity of life, don't go. There's no honor in fighting a war for generals and politicians. And, Adam, what has it to do with you-with us?"

"It has everything to do with me, with you and with us. Don't you understand, Piper? I live in this country and maybe, just maybe, I can help the Union win."

Piper began to laugh. A small laugh at first and then it turned to tears and she began to sob. Adam pulled her next to him and with her head resting on his shoulder, Piper cried. She sobbed as if her heart was broken and Adam thought that maybe it was. Maybe, with what he had said, he had destroyed her.

After a few moments she sat up and wiped the tears from her cheeks. "Oh, Adam, don't you see? The Union HAS won. They won this horrible war before it even began. You don't know what I've seen other than Nash coming back home blinded and scarred-and not just his face. His soul is scarred. He came back another man-he's not the man I married. He's a stranger, a complete stranger to me. That's what war does to people-among other things. It chops them into little pieces and kills their souls and destroys their bodies."

Adam examined her face. "Piper, this is about me and what I feel that I should do to have self-respect."

"Self-respect? Is that what this is about? A dead man doesn't have self-respect. He's dead! And do you think that giving up your eyes or your arms or your legs or even your life is going to help anything? Do you, Adam? Walking around in total blackness, feeling your way through life with a cane-will that help you to respect yourself? "

"Piper? Please…"

"No, Adam. No. I begged for Nash to come away out here where we could be safe. Where there was no war, no crying widows and mothers, no invading armies, no terrors in the night. Oh, Adam why would you leave everyone you love, everything you love for a way of life that doesn't even need you? If you think that losing your life will end the war, well, then put a kitchen knife through your heart. It won't end the war, I assure you of that, not any more than if you had a Confederate bayonet stuck through your chest."

Adam stood up. "This is really none of your business. I shouldn't have mentioned it to you."

"It is my business. I lost you once, Adam, but I was sure that you weren't dead and that made life and all its horrors bearable. I won't lose you completely to this foolish war where humans are used as pawns by the great chess masters who sit on their grand horses and order their men to their deaths or look at maps-just pieces of paper-in their safe offices or tents and discuss acceptable losses of human life. Acceptable to whom? Not to me."

"I should go now." Adam picked up his hat.

"Adam," Piper said in a low voice. "If I give myself to you, will you stay? I'll let you take me here, on this table, now, if you'll stay."

"What?" Adam turned to Piper. Surely she couldn't mean what he thought she did.

Piper walked to him and put a soft hand on his arm. "I'll let you come see me or I'll go see you. We can meet anywhere you like, at any time you like, just please don't go away to war."

"Piper, I would never…"

"You may not but I would. I'll sacrifice my self-respect, anything to have you realize that what they're fighting for on the other side of this country is not your way of life. This is your life, here, building a future for all those who will come out here after the war to escape salted fields, scorched farmland and rubble where their homes once stood. It's clean here and pure and the air isn't tainted with pollution from factories as those up north are nor is there the suffering of those who are starving in the south, who have been run from their homes with nothing to eat or a place to hide. The refugees will be like Aeneas, carrying his elderly father on his back and taking his son by his hand as he leaves his destroyed city forever. Think of that, Adam. Build a way of life here so that all who search for freedom and peace and an honest way of life can find it."

"I've never considered those things because they seemed excuses. I just know that I always felt I should do something. And then when you and Nash appeared, I…" Adam gave a small laugh.

"What? Why are you laughing?" Piper felt drained of all energy. Was he laughing at her because she thought he still wanted her body?

"I think that a part of it was that I was competing with Nash. He was the hero and me? I've done nothing with my life except be a cowhand. Remember how we would talk about the future, of all the magnificent buildings I would design-mansions, cathedrals, public parks, schools! I would design edifices and spaces that people would actually find enhanced their lives. And us-we talked about us and a family and how happy we would be-always as happy as at the beginning of our life together, so unlike all those other married people we knew. We were going to be the exception, weren't we, Piper? We were going to be happy forever."

"And they lived happily ever after." Piper smiled sadly. "If only we lived in a fairy tale."

"But we don't, Piper. I've lost my ambition, my imagined life and even you. I guess I was just young then and love made me foolish and idealistic thinking it was endless and could overcome anything."

"Adam, oh, my darling, you never lost my love." Piper reached out for his hand and then held it to her cheek. "Things are just so…" Piper stopped and listened, slowly dropping Adam's hand. "Nash is calling for me. Let me see what he needs but please don't leave yet. Wait for me, will you? I'll walk you out. I have more to say."

"I'll wait." And Adam sat back down. He picked up the coffee and without adding any sugar, swallowed the bitter drink. Then he poured himself another cup. "Wormwood, wormwood," he said to himself, thinking of Hamlet and his misery that he had to swallow and how bitter it was. Adam took a long sip and made a face at the taste, but he decided that from then on, he would take his coffee black and unsweetened; he may as well learn to take the bitter without the sweet.

He looked up when Piper came back into the kitchen. "Nash is saying that he has pains in his gut. Maybe he has something more than dyspepsia. I should get the doctor. Will you help me hitch up the buggy?"

"I tell you what," Adam said, holding onto Piper's forearms, smiling comfortingly at her. "I'll go home and get Hop Sing to either stop by or to give me some of what he's using on Hoss. Seems like there may be a stomach influenza or such going around."

"Hop Sing?' Piper looked up at Adam questioningly. It was such a relief to her to have someone else take over her troubles. She had faced so much alone that she almost wanted to cry with the sudden release of responsibility. Adam would take care of everything. For once, she had someone to look after her, to comfort her after all these years of being the one to take care of others.

"Hop Sing's our cook. He left us for a while but he's back now. I'll go and I'll be back in about an hour. You shouldn't leave Nash alone anyway with his being ill"

"Thank you, Adam. Thank you. You're too kind to me-more than I deserve."

"Piper, you don't have to thank me-I'd do anything for you-willingly and with no expectations. I want you to know that." He leaned down and kissed her cheek. It was smooth and warm. "And I'll always love you, Piper. No matter what happens." And without another word, Adam walked out and mounted his horse, turned it toward home and rode away.

Piper sat down at the table again. She was so tired and weary. But at least she felt a certain calm here, so close to Adam and in a home that was safe; she didn't have to worry about their house being set fire by Union soldiers or watching while the soldiers robbed her of all her valuables so that they could send the spoils home to their wives and sweethearts. Piper lay her head on her crossed arms. She knew that she should go up to Nash, to sit with him until Adam returned but she didn't have the impetus to drag herself up the stairs again and tears slipped from her eyes only to be soaked into the fabric of the sleeves of her day dress But then she heard Nash call her name again so she slowly stood and began to head for the stairs in the front room. But she turned toward the front half-door when she heard the sounds of footsteps on the porch; Adam must have returned for something.

"Adam?" Piper walked toward the door but stopped when she saw a large man she didn't know put his hand inside the open half of the door and reach in and turn the knob. Piper backed up against the banister and the man walked in, grinning. Behind him was Percy Cartwright who was slyly smiling.

"What do you want? Adam just left." Piper backed up on a step of the stairwell as the large man approached her.

"Yes, my dear, we know," Percy said with amusement as he came out from behind the man. "We watched him leave, watched your chivalrous knight ride away. Okay, Orton, she's yours to enjoy."

The large man smiled. "She's as pretty as you promised," Orton said. He knew that he was going to enjoy this part of the job.

Panic struck Piper and her mind raced. She was on the stairs so she grabbed the newel post, swung around and began to climb. She would lock herself in the bedroom with Nash, she thought, but then she heard the man laugh and from behind, he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up. Piper screamed and Percy, who had seated himself in an upholstered chair, began to giggle. Piper struggled and cried to be let go but the man clapped his hand over her mouth and carried her across his hip, her feet kicking the air. He threw her on the sofa and she landed with a thud. Orton began to unbuckle his gun belt while he looked down at her. Piper knew what was going to happen and she tried to think if there was anything she could do to change what seemed to be determined events but there was nothing. Nevertheless, she felt she couldn't passively accept this as her fate.

At the top of the stairs came a noise and Piper looked to it. Nash stood there waving a gun, cautiously feeling for each step with his foot, and waiting for a sound to tell him where to shoot. He was hanging onto the banister as he could barely stand up with the pain in his gut. "Piper? What is it? Who's there?"

"Nash, go back upstairs," Piper yelled. "Go back to the room."

"Is it Adam? Is he hurting you, Piper?"

"No, it's not Adam. Please go back upstairs." Piper looked at the big man named Orton. "Please," she said, "he's blind."

Orton looked to Percy who nodded. Orton pulled his gun from the holster and fired once and Nash came tumbling down the stairs where he lay dead and crumpled at the bottom, his gun scudding across the floor.

"Nash!" Piper tried to get up to go to her husband but Orton shoved her back down on the couch. Percy laughed and enjoying the scene, called out to Orton to enjoy himself. Piper closed her eyes and her mind and knew that she had to allow what was going to happen; there was no one to help her. And she smelled the stale beer on the man's breath and felt his hands shove up her skirts and then, his knees forcing her thighs apart and Orton had his way with her. And when Orton grunted and finally pulled himself off Piper as she lay limp on the sofa, she realized that Percy had been standing next to the couch.

"Now," Percy said excitedly to Orton, "ruin her looks. It will destroy Adam Cartwright and that I will have done. And as for you, Mrs. Jeffers, imagine our darling Adam when he finds you with a hole where your nose used to be, without those ruby lips he loves to kiss and no tongue in your mouth to whisper his name in the dark. Will he go insane, run screaming from the house only to take his own life? Will he collapse and weep and then leave you? Will he run off to join the war and be shot and bleed to death on some unknown battlefield calling your name out before he dies? Or will he take off for the sea, never to be heard from again?"

And Piper understood. All this had occurred because Adam loved her and Percy hated Adam. In Percy's eyes, she was the tool to Adam's destruction.


	27. Chapter 27

**TWENTY-SEVEN**

Adam pulled his horse up short. He suddenly thought of what Piper had said; Percy had brought them cookies that Mrs. Delaney had baked and Nash had eaten quite a few and he was ill. Hoss became ill as well but then both he and Pa had eaten the same food as Hoss. But Mrs. Delaney served them herself and now that Adam thought about it, she had always served Hoss from the other side of the platter than she served him. Adam broke out in a sweat. He had to go back before Piper ate any of the cookies. He would take the remaining cookies to Roy Coffee and Paul Martin; they needed to know about the suspicious illness that began shortly after Mrs. Delaney came. And Adam was angry with himself that he hadn't connected the events earlier.

Damn," Adam said out loud. He turned his horse back in the direction from which he had come and kicked the animal to spur him on. He had a terrible feeling about Piper being there alone with Nash being ill. And the half door; he should have told Piper to close and lock the top half and to bolt the door. If he hadn't been so busy groveling in his own misery, he thought, he would have.

Adam saw two horses tied to a tree in front of the house. Adam dismounted and drew his gun, looking around. And then he heard Piper scream as if in pain. The front door had been thrown open and as he entered, Adam saw a man straddling Piper as she lay on the floor, struggling. He saw a mass of her dark hair in a pile on the floor beside her and the man was wielding a knife that had fresh blood on it.

"Get off her!" Adam yelled. Orton turned and saw Adam. Orton paused, looking for his gun but it was now too far away and the gun from the dead man's hand would take too long a stretch. Orton shifted the knife in his hand and then threw it. Adam felt it slice his left arm as it flew by. He fired. Orton fell backwards, a small spot of blood on his chest, and landed partially on Piper. She gave a gasp and began to make small cries as she tried to push the dead man off her. Adam moved further into the room when he noticed movement from the corner of his eye and turned. It was Percy pressed up against the wall, his hands up to show that he carried no gun. Adam pulled Orton off Piper and he saw that she had a slashed cheek. Her hair hung unevenly since Orton had sawed at her thick hair to cut it off.

"Adam, he killed Nash." she said. "He shot Nash and he…he hurt me." Seeing Adam's face and hearing his voice caused her to almost break down. He was here now. Adam was here.

"Piper," he said, placing his kerchief on her cheek. "Hold this. Press it against your face." Piper did as he said but she couldn't think. All she knew was that Nash had been killed and the screaming, searing pain in her body and face took all her attention.

Percy looked around trying to see how he could escape-but there was no way-he would have to go past Adam to get out. Panic almost overtook him but he was frozen to the spot. "You had to come and ruin everything, didn't you, Adam?" Percy was breathing heavily. He glared at Adam.

"What do you mean?" Adam ventured closer to the small, thin man pressing himself against the wall. "What the hell do you mean?"

"I detest you," Percy practically spat. "We had only just started on her, just began when you had to come in and play the hero. But look at her. She's not so very pretty anymore is she? Her lovely, rich hair is practically gone and her face is slashed. She was going to lose her nose and her ears as well as that tongue of hers. How would you like to hear nothing but guttural grunts from her as you lay with her? Your true love. And her husband is dead now. There would be nothing to stand in your way. You could have her." Percy began to giggle, almost hysterically. "But you wouldn't want her anymore. That's the joke. The grand joke. Don't you see it, Adam? The joke would have been on you. All that beauty lost and you would reject her, turn your face to the horror that she would become. Now that you could have her with a clear conscience, you wouldn't want her!"

Adam grabbed Percy's shirt front with one hand and stuck his pistol up into the hollow below Percy's jawbone and Percy's eyes widened in terror.

"I didn't touch her," Percy said. "I didn't do anything to her or her husband. I have no weapon. I couldn't stop that monster, Orton, from doing what he did—look at the size of him and then me. You can't kill me."

"Oh, I think I can," Adam said in a low voice, his jaw clenching. "And I'll enjoy seeing your brains splattered against that wall behind you.

"I don't even have a gun. And besides, I'm your brother. You may not like it but I am." Percy felt the pressure from the gun reduce. He was hitting Adam in his vulnerable spot-family. "We both have the same blood running through our veins, you and me. You wouldn't kill your own brother-murder your own brother. What kind of man are you?"

Adam pushed Percy away and Percy almost lost his footing. He backed up against the wall again and rubbed the spot where Adam had pressed the gun barrel. Adam looked at Percy; he hated him with a vehemence he had never felt in his life and as he glared at Percy who stared back in wide-eyed fear, Adam heard a blast and saw Percy's look of disbelief as he gazed past Adam. Percy's hands raised slightly, his palms upward and he tried to speak before he collapsed on the floor, the look of incredulity still on his face as he stared vacantly ahead, a spreading spot of red on his chest.

Adam swung around and almost directly behind him was Piper standing with Nash's pistol in her hand; she was so close she couldn't have missed Percy had she tried. He looked at her and she calmly returned his gaze, almost as if she was unaware of what she had done. Adam gently wrested the gun from her hand and pulled her to him, the blood from her face now spreading on his shirtfront.

"He wanted to ruin you, Adam, hurt you. He told me so. I couldn't let him do that. I couldn't let him hurt you-not anymore. I had to kill him."

"It's all right, Piper. C'mon. We'll go to the kitchen and you can sit down. I'll hitch up the wagon and we'll go to the Ponderosa. We'll do that first. Then I'll get the sheriff and the doctor."

"Yes," Piper said, "get the sheriff. I murdered him, didn't I? I've killed someone and now I'm damned. But I'll gladly spend all eternity in hell to save you, Adam."

Adam steered Piper to the kitchen and sat her on one of the kitchen chairs. She looked as if she was going into shock. Her face was still bleeding. Adam went to the sink and wet a cloth; he needed to staunch the flow. The bodice of Piper's dress was soaked with her blood.

He pressed the wet cloth against her face and she winced. "Please, Piper, don't talk anymore and keep this against your cheek. Please. I'll be back in a minute-just wait. I'll be back." But Piper just gazed at the floor as she held the cloth to her face. He went back into the sitting room and pulled an afghan from off a chair and bringing it back, wrapped it around her. He had to hurry and bring his horse to the back; he didn't want to take her through the front room with the bodies and he decided not to bother with the buggy.

Doctor Martin gave Piper a large dose of laudanum and with Adam pacing in the back of the bedroom, he carefully stitched the long slash on Piper's face. He took two sets of stitches-one set inside and then a few on the outside. "Less chance of scarring," he had told Adam. He also told Adam that there may be nerve damage-time would tell-but that most of the slash was superficial as if the perpetrator hesitated; only a small section was deep. Nevertheless, she would sleep for quite a while with the laudanum and if she woke and complained of pain, she was to be given the usual gram dose. And as for the assault, other than bruising and tearing, her injuries would be more emotional than physical.

"Yes," Adam had said, "and with her husband killed…"

"Let's hope that having your support will help her. It's all so sad, Adam. Terrible and sad." Paul Martin started to leave. "I'm sorry about your…brother. Your father didn't take it well."

"Yes. Thank you," Adam said and then walked Paul downstairs.

Adam sat by Piper's bed and watched her sleep and thought about their marriage so long ago—another lifetime ago-and how much they had loved one another. Adam had given up on ever feeling such consuming love again but now it all came back and the emotions were even stronger and almost knocked him down, they were so overwhelming. He was determined to ensure that no harm would come to Piper again.

When Adam had carried Piper inside and up the stairs of the Ponderosa, Ben had followed to see what was wrong. That was when Adam told him that Percy was dead. He told his father no more than that; Ben had to sit on the bed on which Piper lay, he felt so weak at the news and Adam felt that his father couldn't take any more. The time to let him know all of what Percy had done could wait.

When Paul Martin finally arrived, Adam and Paul had undressed Piper and put her in a tub of warm water and Adam washed her hair that hung in ragged hunks. Not only would the warm bath help wash all the blood off her and any fluids left by Orton, but it would warm her; her skin was like ice. Then Adam slid one of Joe's nightshirts over her head, helping push her arms through the sleeves as she barely responded to his voice, and he lifted her up and tucked her in the bed. Paul gave Piper a heavy dose of laudanum and when she slipped into the painless sleep, he stitched up her cheek. Then he bandaged it with a plaster and told Adam to keep her warm and quiet. He would check in tomorrow.

Adam had sent Thad, one of the ranch hands, to town for the doctor and Sheriff Coffee as soon as he had brought Piper home. She was sitting in front of him on his horse and he was holding her tightly to keep her from toppling from the saddle. After helping Adam with Piper, Thad took off for Virginia City following Adam's instructions to send Sheriff Coffee over to the Jefferses and Doctor Martin to the house.

Sheriff Coffee showed at the house and Hop Sing answered the door.

"Hello, Hop Sing. Heard you were gone for a while-glad that you're back. Can I see Adam?"

"He upstairs. I get him but first, you wait." Hop Sing rushed off to the kitchen and Roy stepped inside and closed the door. Hop Sing returned with the creased brown paper and explained how he had found it in the kitchen. It was poison, Hop Sing said and Mrs. Delaney, if that was her name, had been "poisoning Mistah Hoss and Littul Joe." Hop Sing said that he was certain that it was Mr. Percy's idea. Sheriff Coffee, his jaw raised, just nodded and put the packet in his vest pocket and patting Hop Sing on his shoulder, assured him that he would find out for certain and asked again if he could see Adam.

Hop Sing went up the stairs and soon, both men came down.

"Roy," Adam said as a way of acknowledgment. "Sit down."

"What the hell happened out there, Adam? I got three men shot to death."

"It's a long story, Roy. I'll explain what I know. How about some coffee?"

"Don't mind if I…" but Roy couldn't even finish before Hop Sing showed up with a tray holding coffee and a plate of his special almond cookies and placed them on the table before them.

"Why, thank you, Hop Sing and I got something to show both of you." Roy pulled a folded packet out of his other pocket. "This was on your-well, your deceased relative and this is what Hop Sing found." Roy placed the packet on the table and carefully unfolded it. "Looks to me like it might be that same powder," Roy said as he placed the other unfolded piece of paper beside it.

"It look same," Hop Sing said, pointing at the papers. "I say that she poison Mistah Hoss and Littul Joe."

"Now just calm down, Hop Sing. Adam, who's this woman who was cooking here?" And then Adam began to relate the events to Roy; Adam said that all he knew was that he killed the man who had slashed Piper's face and assaulted her. Both Roy and Hop Sing carefully listened and each wondered what Adam was leaving out.

Roy came back the next day and told Ben and Adam that the man who had assaulted Mrs. Jeffers was a drifter named Johnny Orton. He and Percy had been seen together a few times, the last time in The Silver Dollar. And the saloon girls who worked there also said that a plump, dark-haired woman who they thought was a whore at Miss June's, had been talking to them. And one of the girls added, "Don't none of them look like they was up to nothin' good."

The woman's body had been found in an alley; it appeared that she had been strangled from behind. Whoever it was had obviously followed her and taken her by surprise. So Adam rode into town with Roy and identified the woman as Mrs. Delaney, their short-lived cook. The only other thing, Roy said, was an inquest on the shooting of Percy Chadwick since the dead man had no gun or any other weapon. But Adam remained silent on the subject; he told Roy that at the inquest he would tell what he knew. And then he went home to sit with Piper.

Slowly, Piper recovered but not as quickly as Hoss and Joe did. Hoss was soon back to eating and enjoying Hop Sing's cooking and Joe followed soon after although he had his "eating arm," as he put it, in the sling.

"Now don't you never leave us again," Hoss said the first night he was back to sitting at the dinner table.

Hop Sing grinned; he was happy to be back. And he stood beaming at Ben's side. "You eat more, Mistah Cartwright. Eat potatoes- more gravy."

"I'll eat, Hop Sing. Watch. Another fork-full." Ben swallowed the mashed potatoes. "You don't need to stand here and watch every bite I take."

"You eat. Hop Sing be back. You eat all on plate."

Adam smiled but his thoughts were really upstairs with Piper. She was in the depths of melancholy and barely spoke to anyone except Adam and she said very little to him. Sheriff Coffee had interviewed her when Doctor Martin said it was all right and he had stayed in the room for a half hour. Adam had paced in the hall outside the door.

"What did she say?" Adam asked Roy when he came out.

"Well, Adam, she says she killed Chadwick." Roy told Adam that Piper freely confessed to having shot Percy. She was dispassionate. Roy asked her if it was because of the death of her husband or her assault but Piper said, no, it wasn't for that. Percy hadn't committed those acts although he was behind them but he performed neither of him.

Roy had swallowed deeply; he had tried to give Piper Jeffers a way out but she refused to take it. Piper said that she shot Percy because he had told her that he wanted to destroy Adam and if he had lived, he would have certainly done so. She told Roy that she couldn't allow Percy to live because of that-she had to rid the world of him. Roy told her that the law considered that murder and was she sure that she didn't want to change her story.

Piper said that she was sure since it was the truth. And so Roy left Piper sitting in a rocking chair in the back bedroom of the Ponderosa. And once Roy left after talking briefly with Ben and Adam and telling them that she needed a lawyer but he would leave her with them, Adam rapped on Piper's door and then went in.

"Piper?" He walked over to the bed and sat on the side of the bed to face her.

"Are they going to hang me?" she asked quietly.

"Piper." Adam leaned toward her. "Can't you say that you shot Percy because Nash was killed and that you didn't know what you were doing? That you had been hurt, dishonored-can't you say that?" He needed to plead with her. If she went to trial, he wasn't sure how it would resolve itself and she had suffered, had been horribly victimized.

"Nash died to me so long ago, Adam. I grieved for him then. When he came back home after being blinded, he was no longer the man I knew, the kind gentle husband I had. I've lost two husbands now, haven't I?" Piper said. "I lost you and I grieved for you then. Oh, Adam, how I grieved for you. I think I did lose a bit of my sanity. And now look at me." Piper still had a plaster on her cheek although the lesser wound had healed and left a light pink mark. Hop Sing had given her a scarf for her hair and she wore it with the ends tied at the nape of her neck. She didn't like looking at her hair-it just reminded her of that day. Adam, in trying to comfort her, had told her that it was only hair and that it would grow back and it would be as it had been given time.

"Nothing will be as it was. I'm not the same person I was and I never will be again. I thought that the war had changed me but this-this went to my very core, Adam. Nothing will be as it was. You must hate me now-have revulsion for me."

Adam tried his best to assure her that he loved her, loved her more than he ever had. She would just look at him, her eyes large and sad and he knew that she didn't believe him. And when he tried to talk to her about the assault, she wouldn't. But to Adam, nothing mattered except that she was there, safe and healing. Yet she went through each day just doing what needed to be done. And Adam would bring up her meals and sit with her and try to get her to talk. And one night, Piper woke up screaming from a nightmare and Adam crawled into her bed and held her and crooned soothing words to her, telling her she was safe and he lay there for the rest of the night, staring at the ceiling and cursing the men who had brought his beloved Piper to this state.

Roy Coffee returned a few days later and said that an inquest was being held but if things turned out the way he guessed they would, he would have to arrest Mrs. Jeffers and take her to jail. He should have done so already but with her delicate condition, he had put it off. Adam promised Roy that he would have Mrs. Piper there but he saw no reason for it; he had shot Orton and Nash had shot Percy.

"Now, Adam," Roy said, "that's not what Mrs. Jeffers said and that ain't what you told me."

"Yes, it is," Adam said. "Didn't you write it down?" Adam stood with his hands in his back pockets.

"No, I didn't write it down but I'm beginning to think I should've." Roy pressed his lips together and shook his head. "Look, Adam, you ain't fooling me. I know what you're doing and it's not going to work."

"I don't know what you mean. Look. Other than my gun, the only other gun fired was Nash's, correct?"

"Yeah, that's correct. So what? You expect me to believe that a blind man fired and hit his target."

"Lucky shot. Nash Jeffers shot Percy Chadwick and I killed Orton. Piper was in such a state that she doesn't know what happened. I'm sure that she feels guilt about her husband so she wants to think she shot Percy. She was hysterical. I'll testify to that."

"I just bet you would. I bet you'd testify that the sky was green and the grass blue to help her, wouldn't you."

"I saw what happened. I know what Mrs. Jeffers was going through-had gone through. She can't be put through any more. I shot Orton and Jeffers shot Percy and that's the way it happened. Now call your inquest."

Roy shook his head and turned to leave, his hand on the latch. "I swear, Adam, if you aren't the most…" Roy pulled open the door and walked out and Adam pressed it shut behind him.

Adam leaned against the door and breathed a sigh of relief. He knew there would be no inquest; Roy wouldn't call one-couldn't now. He knew that Adam could paint a picture of a helpless woman who was in such a state that she had no true idea of what had happened and he would look an incompetent sheriff, a fool.

And so Adam, blowing out a deep sigh of relief, climbed the stairs back up to Piper's room. He would tell her that everything was going to be fine, that the past was over and that their life together would be sweet. It would take time, but they had time for that's what life was made of and they could spend the rest of theirs together.

~ Finis ~


End file.
